The last year’s economic growth of almost 9% is not durable, even if it’s the highest ever recorded in Moldova, considers the executive director of the think tank “Expert-Grup” Adrian Lupusor. Analyzing the structure of the GDP growth, the expert said the main factors that ‘catalyzed’ the increase in 2013 will not keep in 2014, IPN reports.

According to Adrian Lupusor, about half of this growth was due to the 41% rise in the gross value added in agriculture. But this progress wasn’t based on structural improvements in this sector. It was fueled by the compensatory growth after the drought of 2012. It is evident that agriculture in 2014 will make much more modest progress, given the high comparison base and the perpetuation of the structural deficiencies in the sector.

The expert stated that another factor that ‘swelled’ the economic growth last year was the controlled deprecation of the national currency against the dollar and the euro. This brought an additional contribution of 1-1.5 percentage points to the GDP growth of 8.9% in 2013. Thus, the short-term positive effects of the depreciation of the Moldovan leu will disappear in 2014.

Adrian Lupusor said the sectors that ensured about half of the gross value added in industry declined despite the 6.8% increase in industrial output last year. Moreover, the economic recovery didn’t lead to the creation of an appropriate number of workplaces. The employment rate this year is projected to remain at the same level, which is one of the lowest in the region.

If the recovery in agriculture and the depreciation of the national currency hadn’t overlapped, the economic growth would have been of 3%-3.5%. Given the mentioned constraints, the population should expect a much lower economic growth in 2014, of about 3%.