The Republic of Moldova enjoys Romania’s support in as number of sectors of the economy, both financially and in terms of expertise and good practices, Dumitru Pîntea, director of the Organization for Entrepreneurship Development (ODA), stated in a public debate hosted by IPN.

According to him, Romania’s support is essential for Moldova and this is permanent. “We have a number of projects with Romania, like connection with universities, with the Chamber of Commerce, which are designed to stimulate economic activity and cooperation between entrepreneurs from both sides of the Prut in different sectors. Tourism is one of these sectors. The Republic of Moldova undertook to develop rural tourism and a program to finance this sector was recently approved. We see the potential and the special interest in this sector. Through the agency of the joint project, our entrepreneurs can learn more about how they acted to develop this sector in Romania. This sector can attract a lot of tourists,” said Dumitru Pîntea.

The agreements and cooperation relations between the two states are important and can be seen also in the transposition of the good practices from Romania into Moldova. A number of changes were made last year and the companies that now operate in Moldova, no matter where they are situated, can benefit from state support. “We eliminated the existing restriction that ran counter to the EU standards. In this context, the companies with Romanian capital can be supported in the Republic of Moldova. Here, we show that we adopt the same approach to things and this also contributes to establishing and continuing the necessary economic balance. When an area is more powerful from economic viewpoint, it attracts the resources of the other areas from nearby. Respectively, as there are no linguistic and geographical barriers, Romania’s economy can easily attract labor force and capital from our country,” stated the ODA director.

He noted that Moldova has yet a lot to learn from Romania, including as regard labor productivity. “The Republic of Moldova produces goods and services that are cheaper than in other regions. For productivity to grow, as this pushes the salaries and the wellbeing of citizens up, we must produce goods and services with value added, to enhance our competitiveness. The ODA has projects that support investments since the starting of a business up to the moment the business is ready to export. We have programs for beginners, for digitization, ecologization, energy efficiency and internationalization programs,” he stated, noting that Romania is the main export market for Moldovan entrepreneurs and the Government has policies that facilitate investments in sectors with value added.

Dumitru Pîntea noted the partnership with Romania is strategic, especially now that Moldova was granted the EU candidate status and aims to join the European family. “I think no one else than our brothers from the other side of the Prut can support us better at EU level. The EU institutions represent the European states and the countries have different views on the Republic of Moldova. That’s why it is very important to have partners when you want to obtain something at the level of the European Union. Here, Romania is one of our main advocates. We felt how it is like having powerful partners behind and swiftly achieving the planned results.”

The public debate entitled “Moldovan-Romanian economic cooperation, strategic partnership on the way to European integration” was staged within the framework of the project “Double integration through cooperation and information”, which is implemented by IPN News Agency with support from the Department for Relations with the Republic of Moldova of the Government of Romania.