The Chisinau administration in the second half of this year will announce a contest and invite tenders for reconstructing the irrigation systems of the country. The contest is open to foreign companies as well. Such an announcement was made by the deputy director of the “Acva Proiect” Institute, Anatol Calasnic, at a thematic seminar, Info-Prim Neo reports. The quoted source said that for a large part of the crops, irrigation is the main factor that contributes to a high yield. An irrigation installation costs 5,000 dollars on average. According to the information presented at the seminar, the drained land in Moldova occupies about 60,000 hectares, while the irrigated land – approximately 145,000 hectares. The water from the rivers Prut, Nistru and the Danube and from ponds can be used to irrigate up to 600,000 hectares of land. More than 60,000 hectares of arable land in southern Moldova can be irrigated from the Danube River, said the deputy director of the “Acva Proiect” Institute. The irrigation systems must be extensively repaired on an area of 92,000 hectares. According to the deputy director general of Moldova’s Water Agency, Mihai Pincov, about 80 million lei is needed to rehabilitate the irrigation systems in Moldova. Five districts cannot use mass irrigation. The authorities there sign contracts for so-called small irrigation. The seminar “Irrigation as Factor that Attenuates Natural Risks in Agriculture” was organized by the Business Consulting Institute as part of the National Strategy for Alleviating Natural Risks and Climate Change.