Since the Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement were signed with the EU, the exports have been diversified and massively reoriented to the European market, Minister of Economy Octavian Calmac stated in an interview for Radio Free Europe, quoted by IPN.

The official said that Moldova’s exported to the EU in 2016 represented 65% of all exports, as opposed to up to 50% several years ago.

Octavian Calmac noted that Moldova’s relations with the traditional CIS market have been in decline since 2006, when the Russian Federation for the first time started to apply tariff and non-tariff measures to Moldovan products. This decline became more evident in 2014, when tariff measures were applied to most of the products exported from Moldova.

“Furthermore, there were introduced those requirements and exceptions of the free trade regime, lists of companies that were allowed to export and many other requirements that, according to the international norms, can be regarded as barriers to trade. This led to the reduction in trade or exports to the CIS from 38% in 2013 to 20% in 2016. Trade with the Russian Federation decreased from 26% to 12% in 2016,” stated the minister.

According to Octavian Calmac, the Moldovan business entities found some alternative niches or markets for export, mainly in the EU, but not only as new markets were opened up in the region, the Turkish one and the Chinese one, and in the Mediterranean area, which the Moldovan products are making effort to penetrate.