Chisinau, September 20 (Infotag). Retail traders working at the Dynamo market of Chisinau are preparing to an action of protest against the Chisinau Municipality’s decision to liquidate that market.

Chairman of the Moldovan Small Businesses Association Eugen Roscovan told a news conference in Infotag today that the protesters, who are overwhelmingly second-hand retailers, are going to close their kiosks for 2 hours on September 22 to thus attract the public’s attention to the problem they are facing. This is going to be the first instance of such protesting in the history of Moldova’s “market economy”, he said.

If the market is really liquidated, some 450 traders will lose jobs which they have themselves created. Besides them, many thousand consumers will lose the possibility to use the convenient market – the only one in that part of the city.

The traders and the Association do not believe in the Municipality’s statements that the market liquidation has been envisaged by the General Plan of Chisinau Development being designed for next several years.

“Under the loud statements that Chisinau must become ‘a city of the European future’, certain groups are trying to dictate us what to buy, and from whom, and at what prices. Meanwhile, citizens are losing jobs and means of subsistence, not to mention the gross infringement on consumers’ rights”, stated Eugen Roscovan.

He said the Municipality is promising working places at other Chisinau markets, although the officials are perfectly aware that other markets are full and are closed to strangers. The Dynamo traders sent a letter to Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin asking his help to resolve the problem.

The General Plan of Chisinau Development for a period ending in 2020 is only in the making yet. Moreover, its concept is only being shaped at the present time. The market liquidation initiative belongs to the Dynamo Stadium administration, which has been long dreaming to say goodbye to the traders and lock the stadium gate behind them.

In July 2005, the Moldovan Government decided to put an end to the imports and trade in second-hand items in Moldova as such. However, energetic protesting followed, and the Cabinet was forced to cancel its hasty decision.