​REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT DEMANDS LARGER GOVERNMENT INVESTMENTS – IDIS

Institute of Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS) “Viitorul” expert Iurie Gotisan presented the results of his research, in which he maintains that the Government has to invest more in developing Moldova’s regions.

He said that in 2017, the National Regional Development Fund allocated 200 million lei for various projects, which is only 0.3% of the GDP, while in Estonia and Lithuania this share accounts for 5%, in Romania – 2.5%.

According to him, the share of European partners in regional project often considerably exceeds the state share, while the division of the country with such a small territory into 6 regions is inefficient at distributing state funds.

“Lack of a clear financing mechanism leads to the situation when funds to each regional development direction are distributed unevenly. There is lack of an overall picture of project result assessing, efficiency of funds’ using. Thus, it is necessary to make the regional development an inter-ministerial field of cooperation to get the general information about other instruments of state financing – the National Agriculture and Rural Development Fund, the Road Fund and other sources somehow connected with the development of regions”, the expert said.

“In order to efficiently implement the 2020 National Development Strategy (on which the state is planning to spend around 7 billion lei), it is necessary to raise the annual share of financing from the National Regional Development Fund to minimum 2% of the GDP or in the best case – 4%, as in European Union countries”, Gotisan concluded.