AGRICULTURE MINISTER SAYS FREE TRADE ZONE AGREEMENTS BENEFICIAL FOR MOLDOVA

The Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry, Vladimir Bolea, believes that the agreements on free trade zones, which Moldova has signed with other countries, are beneficial for the republic. He said this during the program "New Week with Anatolie Golea" on TV8 channel.

Answering questions, he emphasized that in no case should we abandon free trade agreements that are in force with the CIS countries, with the European Union, as well as with Turkey and a number of other countries.

"Closing the free trade zone and the Moldovan market as a 'protectionist' measure to allegedly protect farmers from the infestation of foreign products, as some people suggest, is a nonsense that will only lead to killing local agricultural producers," Bolea said.

Commenting on the proposal of the Farmers' Power association, which last year suggested closing the Moldovan market for grain and sunflower from Ukraine following the example of some EU countries, he recalled that Moldova imposed restrictions and licensing in October 2023, when Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland resorted to it.

"We could not like them close the market. First of all, Moldova is not a member of the European Union. And secondly - and this is the most important - Moldova is an exporter of agricultural products. And we will only lose from the closure of the market," the deputy prime minister stressed.

He also recalled that most of the Moldovan farmers' products are exported.

"In percentage terms, it is up to 70%. We are not an importing country, we are exclusively an exporting country. And closing the market, as some comrades propose, is killing our agricultural producers. Of the 81,000 tons of rapeseed produced in 2023, all went for export. Of the 800,000 tons of sunflower sold on the domestic market up to 335,000 tons, the rest went for export. And it went at a very favorable price. We consume 320,000 tons of grain domestically, and produced 1.5 million tons last year. We exported 1 million tons of Moldovan grain and almost 2 million tons of corn to Romania, when the domestic consumption does not even approach half of this figure. In addition, the oil that was processed also went for export. As well as juices made from apples," Bolea noted.

Asked about the actions of Russia, which violates the free trade zone agreements and imposes an embargo on Moldovan products, he said that "these are political actions."

"We are not discussing these issues now at the level of the leadership. There are discussions only at the level of the National Agency for Food Safety (ANSA) and Rosselkhoznadzor. Everyone understands what the situation is and the reasons for it. The process of denunciation of agreements within the CIS has been launched. It did not affect agriculture, as Moldova participates in 26 agreements in this field. All of them are of a technical nature, referring to certification, quality and standards of products," the deputy prime minister said.

He also stressed that Moldova is now striving to sign new free trade agreements with other countries, including with the CIS countries on a bilateral basis.

"We also seek to sign agreements with India and Egypt, where we could export our apples. But for them Moldova is a very "small" partner, they are not very interested in signing an agreement," Vladimir Bolea admitted.