● MONDAY, May 18

Parking garage at Chisinau airport opened

The four-story parking garage with a capacity of 800 places, located in front of the Chisinau International Airport, was put into operation. According to a press release of Avia Invest SRL, which managers the airport, initially all the clients of the airport will be able to use the parking garage free of charge. To swiftly identity the place of the parked vehicle, each story was painted with a different color – yellow, orange, gray and red. Parking places for persons with disabilities are available on the upper floor. There are also two elevators for transporting passengers and goods, ramps between floors for visitors and vehicles, a video control and supervision system, information devices and other necessary equipment.

● TUESDAY, May 19

State sells property of almost 800 million lei

The Moldova Stock Exchange on May 19 holds the first auction to sell state-owned shares this year. Outcry auctions will take place on May 20, 21 and 22 as well. Shareholdings in 24 joint stock companies, in 11 of which the state has controlling interest, will be exhibited for sale in them. State-owned shares in the following companies will be auctioned: “Comert Petrol” SA (100%); “Aeroport Catering” SA (100%); the Orhei-based tobacco factory “Fabrica de fermentare a tutunului din Orhei” SA (95%); the Falesti-based sanitation equipment company “Uzina masini de salubrizare din Falesti SA (94%); “Alimentarmas” SA (30%); the Vulcanesti-based Butter and Cheese Factory (13%), and others.

Mobiasbancă – Groupe Société Générale celebrates 25 years of its foundation

Mobiasbancă – Groupe Société Générale is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the foundation. The bank’s president Ridha Tekaia told a news conference that in the period the bank managed to occupy top positions in rankings and to become one of the most innovative and trusted banks on the home market, with products that meet the international standards. Ridha Tekaia said that during the 25 years Mobiasbancă – Groupe Société Générale has enjoyed the confidence of clients, financial stability and support from the international partners. The bank has launched a series of innovative services, with MobiasSMS being the most recent one. This is distance service by which the clients can pay the bills and perform bank operations directly from the mobile phone. There was launched a new training center designed to improve the quality of the provided services by training seminars for employees.

State sells shareholding in INLAC

The 1.5% state-owned shareholding in the Edinet-based joint stock company INLAC was sold at the first outcry auction to sell state-owned shares, which was held at the Moldova Stock Exchange on May 19. The selling price of a share was 70 lei and the buyer paid thus 47,300 lei for the 1.5% shareholding. INLAC produces milk, butter and powdered milk. The auctions to sell state-owned shares in 24 joint stock companies will continue during the next three days, until May 22. In 11 of these companies, the state has controlling interest.

● WEDNESDAY, May 20

Agricultural producers do not give up protesting, statements

The representatives of farmers who met with Prime Minister Chiril Gaburici on May 19 said they will not give up staging protests. The issue was discussed in the talk show “Politics” on TV 7 channel. Chairman of the Union of Agricultural Producers Associations of Moldova Alexandru Slusari said no consensus was reached in the meeting with Premier Gaburici. “The discussions with the Prime Minister didn’t change our opinion. The same uncertain, general promises were made - that they will make effort to help us. The situation in agriculture is serious. The 380 million lei allocated from the state budget for developing agriculture is insufficient. Instead of increasing the agriculture subsidization fund, they decreased it by 200 million lei on last year. To be able to cope with the situation, we need at least 600 million lei,” he said. Slusari also said that the farmers formulated proposals for improving the situation and submitted them to the Premier. “A solution is to annul the excise duties on diesel fuel for agricultural producers. It’s known that this money goes into the road fund. The agricultural producers use their machinery in the field. It’s not fair. The agricultural producers should also be allowed to import diesel fuel for agricultural works themselves. The Government should borrow 600 million lei from the National Bank. This money would be paid back in half a year from European funds,” he stated.

Government to examine problem of overdue agricultural subsidies in next meeting

The executive, in its next meeting, will examine the problem of the distribution of the agriculture subsidization fund for last year so that the farmers get the overdue subsidies in the nearest future. Such a promise was made by Prime Minister Chiril Gaburici in a meeting with representatives of farmers associations. According to the Government’s press service, the farmers proposed amending the legislation so that the entrepreneurs’ cooperatives created by agricultural producers could import oil products directly from refineries. They also asked facilitating access to preferential bank loans and collecting the excise duties put on the fuel used by agricultural machinery into the agriculture subsidization fund, not into the road fund. The agricultural producers contribute about 300 million lei a year to the budget through such excises.

World Bank offers US$2m additional financing to Moldova for forecasting severe weather

The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved a US$2 million additional financing to the Republic of Moldova for the Disaster and Climate Risk Management Project, which will support the State Hydrometeorological Service’s ability to forecast severe weather and improve the country’s overall capacity to prepare for and respond to natural disasters. The new funding complements the original US$10 million project and aims to reduce Moldova’s susceptibility to natural disasters, particularly in agriculture and related sectors, and diminish the country’s economic vulnerability to droughts, floods and other natural shocks. Over the past four years the ongoing project has supported a range of activities in hydro-meteorological services, civil protection and climate smart agriculture, including the establishment of the Emergency Command Center for disaster response, creation of a mobile weather and market information alert system, and operationalization of a Doppler radar system to forecast severe weather.

● THURSDAY, May 21

Moldova aims to diversify natural gas and electricity supply sources

The Government of Moldova and the Government of Romania will sign a memorandum of understanding on the implementation of projects to interconnect the natural gas and power networks of the two countries. The draft memorandum was approved by the Cabinet of Moldova on May 20. The document aims to ensure Moldova’s energy security, create preconditions for integration into the European common energy market and ensure the implementation of projects needed to supply electricity from Romania to Moldova during a long period of time. The memorandum of understanding will also allow strengthening the partnership relations in the energy sector between Moldova and Romania and will contribute to implementing strategic projects to ensure interconnection with the EU’s electric power and natural gas sectors. Under the document, a number of projects of national importance will be implemented, namely: the Ungheni-Chisinau and Onesti-Iasi gas pipelines and electric interconnections Isaccea-Vulcanesti-Chisinau, Iasi-Ungheni-Straseni and Suceava-Balti.

2014 budget deficit lower than projected

The Cabinet approved the report on the fulfillment of the 2014 state budget, with incomes of 27.7 billion lei and an expenditure of 29.3 billion lei. According to Minister of Finance Anatol Arapu, the state budget incomes last year were by 23.5% higher than a year before. The fiscal incomes represented 79.1%, while the grants – 14.2%. Money was also collected from non-fiscal sources and from the special means of public institutions. 94.7% of the planned expenditure was used, but the spending was by 22.8% higher than in 2013. The deficit was 1.6 billion lei, by about 1 billion lei less than projected.

Economic entities will present fewer documents at customs

The number of documents that accompany the customs declaration presented by economic entities performing import-export operations was decreased from ten to three. Customs Service director general Tudor Balitski said the change will help reduce the time and costs associated with the import-export activities, will ensure the uniform implementation of the non-tariff measures, will minimize the risk of corruption and will bring Moldova closer to the European standards in the area of transfrontier trade. “The companies of Moldova will be able to fully benefit from the opportunities offered by the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with the EU. The simplification of the procedures is beneficial especially to the small and medium-sized enterprises with limited resources,” stated Tudor Balitski. 

Subsidization in agriculture will be capped

The Government approved the regulations concerning the distribution of the agriculture subsidization fund for 2015. Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Ion Sula said that after the overdue subsidies of 230 million lei, for investments made by the agricultural producers in 2014, are paid, the remaining 380 million lei will be disbursed for implementing the 11 subsidization measures stipulated in the 2015 state budget law. Emphasis will be placed on small and medium-sized agricultural producers. That’s why there was set a ceiling of 2.5 million lei from which one producer can benefit, based on all the subsidization measures. If they form associations, the agricultural producers will get subsidies of up to 4 million lei. The regulations stipulate ceilings for each subsidization measure.

Small businesses in DCFTA countries to get €200m worth of grants from EU

The European Union will provide some €200 million worth of grants for the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia through the DCFTA Facility, Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations  Johannes Hahn announced on May 21. In a news conference on the sidelines of the Eastern Partnership Business Forum held in Riga, Johannes Hahn said this contribution is expected to unlock new investments worth at least €2 billion for the SMEs in the three DCFTA countries, but didn’t specify the mechanism. The Commissioner noted that the money will be provided to SMEs based on merit, for competitive and high-quality projects. The financing will enable the SMEs to invest in enhancing competitiveness and will help them to integrate into the global networks and to comply with EU product standards and environmental protection measures.

DCFTA is a ‘fitness program’ for EaP countries, European Commissioner

The regime of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (DCFTA) is a ‘fitness program’ for the Eastern Partnership countries that signed the given commitments because these oblige them to do reforms and to meet the European standards, Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn said in the Eastern Partnership Business Forum that was held in Riga on May 21. Johannes Hahn noted that Moldova and Georgia already showed the first promising results after signing the DCFTA, increasing their exports to the EU. “The starting points were surely modest, but this shows that there is potential,” he stated. The Commissioner underscored the importance of the SMEs in the context of the new free trade regime, saying the DCFTA offers extraordinary opportunities to these. Referring to Moldova, Hahn gave as example a wine company that managed to augment its exports to the EU and the U.S. with the assistance of the European institutions. “By the way, the Moldovans have excellent wines,” he said.

● FRIDAY, May 22

150 successful Moldovans promoted within project supported by Mobiasbanca

150 successful Moldovans were promoted within a project launched by the Publicis Moldova Agency with the support of Mobiasbanca – Groupe Société Générale. According to the authors, the project is aimed at showing the whole world that Moldova has people of whom it can be proud and has examples of life stories that can inspire anyone. The success stories of the protagonists of the project were presented in a festivity on May 21. These received by a personalized bank cards with free servicing during the period of validity from Mobiasbanca – Groupe Société Générale in gratitude and appreciation of their talent. The bank’s president Ridha Tekaia said these are talented and devoted people who make the country famous abroad, but are less known in Moldova. “Moldova needs a good image abroad and such an image can be built with the help of the talented people of this country. I hope that by this initiative, we will make these names known and will inspire other people to become more courageous and to do nice things,” he stated.

This year Moldova will have adopted almost half of European standards

By the end of this year, Moldova will have adopted about 10,000 European standards, which is almost half of the 23,000 standards that it must adopt by 2018. Iurie Socol, director of the National Institute of Standardization, has told that the European standards, unlike the old, Soviet ones (GOSTs), provide more advantages and allow the producers not only to export to the European market, but to also develop new products. Iurie Socol said that Moldova inherited a whole system of Soviet standards. About 13,500 GOSTs are now in force and these are different from the European standards. If a company applies the GOST in the production process, its products are not accepted on the European market because they do not meet the requirements. An advantage of implementing the European standards is the fact that requirements that didn’t exist in the Soviet period appeared, like the demand that the products must be energy efficient. It is the same as in the case of the rights of the persons with special needs – the Soviet trolleybuses were not outfitted with wheelchair access.

● SATURDAY,  May 23

Government discusses economic initiatives with civil society 

A number of economic initiatives put forward by the executive were presented and discussed with representatives of civil society in a meeting that took place in the Government Building in the evening of May 22. Prime Minister Chiril Gaburici presented his own view on the situation in the economy and the financial-banking sector. He spoke about the initiatives that are designed to remedy the situation and to ensure sustainable economic development, along the other two priorities of the Government – national unity and supremacy of the law. After the meeting, the Premier told the press that the proposed initiatives are short and medium-term ones and are aimed at improving the business environment. Among the suggested measures are to reduce the number of authorizations by at least 30%, to implement the one-stop shop system that will unify the services provided by a number of public institutions, to significantly simplify the procedures for providing construction and trading authorizations.

 State won over 56,000 lei from sale of shares in Inlac and Carmez 

The state gained slightly over 47,000 lei from the sale of its shares in SA Inlac based in Cupcini, Edinet (1.49% of shares at the price of 70 lei a share) and 9,000 lei from the sale of its holding in SA Carmez (0.023% of the shares at the price of 18 lei apiece). These were the only state-owned shareholdings sold in the actuations held at the Moldova Stock Exchange on May 19-22. There were exhibited state-owned shares in 24 joint stock companies. In 11 of these the state has controlling interest. In an outcry auction, the shares were proposed as undividable holdings.