The National Development Plan (NDP) for 2008-2011 was approved by the Government on December 5. First Deputy Prime Minister Zinaida Grecianyi said that the Plan is an all-inclusive document that aims to integrate the existent strategic framework, to engage in the process of budget planning and to assimilate the foreign assistance. According to the cited source, the NDP was formulated with the aim of ensuring the continuity of the reforms initiated under the Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper that expires this year and under the EU Moldova Action Plan and the sustainability of the economic growth, and of avoiding the dispersing of efforts in the process of formulating, implementing, monitoring and assessing policies, generated by the multitude of related strategic documents that have common characteristics. Zinaida Grecianyi said that by this yearend, the Government will approve the Plan of Action for implementing the NDP and only then the total volume of financial resources necessary to carry out the Plan could be assessed. The Plan of Action will be updated annually simultaneously with the updating of the average-term expenditure framework and with the approval of the budget. The Plan of Action will stipulate the priorities for each year. All the available resources, both internal and external, will be used to implement these priorities, as agreed with the donor community. The First Deputy Prime Minister avoided naming the priorities for the next year, saying that these will be announced only after they are coordinated with the Government’s social partners – trade unions and employers. Twenty-five public debates were held between June-October 2007 in 11 settlements of the country, including the municipalities of Chisinau and Balti, during the first stage of public debates on the formulation of the NDP. Over 1,500 people from 27 districts of the country took part in the debates. The civil society submitted about 100 proposals and suggestions on how to improve the National Development Plan to the Government. A part of these were accepted and inserted in the document’s final text, Grecianyi said. Taking into account the experience of the previous years, when the large number of set objectives did not have financial coverage, the Government set out a shorter list of priorities, five in number: building of a modern democratic state based on the preeminence of law; settlement of the Transnistrian dispute and the country’s reunification; enhancement of the national economy’s competitiveness; development of human resources, improvement of employment and promotion of social inclusion, and regional development. At a recent meeting of the foreign donors (UN, the World Bank, USAID, the European Commission’s Delegation, SIDA, DFID and others), Moldova’s partners for development expressed their readiness to provide technical and financial assistance in implementing the National Development Plan since it is adopted.