IPN News Agency presents a picture of the year in different areas in the view of governmental authorities and independent experts. “2018: how it was and how it wasn’t!?” No.10: Finances
Expert of the Watchdog.MD Community Ion Potlog said 2018 in the financial sector leaves a positive impression, but this is only an impression. In reality, it was a year when the state institutions tried to stabilize the financial market, but didn’t hurry to intervene at legal level and took action rather at the regulatory level. The results of the year can be understood and interpreted through the angle of the freezing of the EU macro-financial assistance.
According to the expert, given the constraints that derive from the process of regrouping the banking sector, the real economy was in decline. Neither in 2018, the banking institutions showed capacity and continued to be uninterested in investments. As regards the attraction of foreign investment, the Government didn’t achieve results here. The investors don not hurry to enter a market polarized by personal interests and that is politically volatile.
The Government didn’t manage to channel new resources to the country’s economy, while those attracted through private capital are dubious and inefficient as a financial model, even if they are necessary as public infrastructure elements. Ion Potlog considers the progress wasn’t significantly felt in 2018, despite the effort and success of the new policies pursued by the National Bank of Moldova, which managed to stabilize the financial market with minimum available resources.
The expert noted there are many opportunities for modernizing the financial sector, but the main problem is the absence of enough highly qualified labor force in this field. Moldova’s Government has drawbacks in creating an intelligent and transparent financial environment and focuses only on operational problems.
Ion Potlog said 2019 should come with a full agenda in field of finances and should see not only the working out of development strategies, but also their implementation. Actions should be taken to motivate the banking system to switch over from micro-lending to investments and to diversify the sources of income so that they do not stop to operational taxes and interest on consumption loans. The excess of liquidity should be balanced by investments in the economy, not by inter-banking investments.
The expert also mentioned the necessity of reconfiguring the insurance system and of consolidating this by creating a legal and normative framework for facilitating the appearance and development of private pension funds, of modernizing and strengthening the National Commission for Financial Markets and the Moldova Stock Exchange and of founding an exchange for trading not only in agricultural products.
The priorities of the investment projects should be systemized and these should be disseminated internationally so as to ensure the mobilization of private capital and its attraction for developing Moldova’s economy. The Ministry of Finance is recommended to bring things in order as regards the structure and correctitude of operating the accounts and subaccounts of the treasury, while the Government of Moldova should make effort to regain the development partners’ trust.
Maria Procopciuc, IPN
P.S.: IPN publishes the article without the comment of the secretary general of state at the Ministry of Finance Ion Chicu as this wasn’t provided on the agreed time.
Other materials of the campaign “2018: how it was and how it wasn’t!?”:
Agriculture, regional development and environment
Defense
Education
Justice
Transnistrian settlement
Economy and Infrastructure
Health, labor and social protection
Internal affairs
Foreign affairs and European integration
