The Chamber of Trade and Industry and the USAID BIZTAR Business Regulatory and Tax Administration Reform Project launched the Chisinau Regional Working Group. As Info-Prim Neo reports, Tudor Olaru, the vice president of the Chamber of Trade and Industry, said that this group will help stimulate the dialogue between the public and private sectors on regulatory reform-related matters, will contribute towards disseminating information about the legislative amendments concerning the entrepreneurial activity and towards removing the barriers to business activity. USAID BIZTAR director Beto Brun said that the regional working groups are launched with the aim of developing the local information capacities and the capacities of participating in the promotion of the regulatory reform. The SUD and Balti regional working groups were re-launched earlier. They were created while another USAID Bizpro-Moldova project was being implemented. The two working groups cooperate with the local public administrations, inspection bodies and businesspeople in the identification of problems encountered by businesses, generalizing simultaneously the proposals aimed at improving the legislative framework put forward by economic entities. Eugen Osmochescu, expert in matters related to the regulatory reform, said that the Chisinau Regional Working Group will focus on the collection and generalization of the proposals concerning the optimization of the system for issuing authorizations for starting a business, implementation of the “one-stop office” method for obtaining such authorizations at the Chisinau City Hall, and the opinions regarding the impact of the new regulatory documents adopted by the central and local authorities. The Chisinau Regional Working Group includes officials from the local public administration and Chisinau businesspersons. The BIZTAR project plans to launch working groups in other regions of Moldova so as to insure the dissemination of information about the regulatory reform and facilitate the participation of all the districts in the implementation of the reform. The USAID BIZTAR Project (2007-2009) has an available budget of 6.5 million dollars. It focuses on developing licensing procedures, simplifying business and tax reporting requirements, optimizing regulatory procedures in the construction sector, organizing regional events with the participation of entrepreneurs, organizing and providing ombudsman services in business (business lawyer).