In 2007, Government will increase the wages for employees working in the budgetary field by 25% on average. On Wednesday, February 14, the Cabinet approved a bill on amending the Law on wage system from December 23, 2005, which provides that budgetary employees will receive higher wages starting April 1, July 1 and September 1. Minister of Economy and Commerce, Igor Dodon, told the press that wage increases which are to be implemented during 2007 are the same that have been included in the basic law. According to him, at the end of the last year Parliament approved a decision on suspending for about a year the implementation of the provisions of the Wage Law: from January 1 to December 1, 2007, because of the external shocks and pessimist forecasts regarding the revenues of the budget. However, the minister said at that moment that if the revenues will have a positive pace, fact ascertained at present, the Government will implement the law in the first months of 2007. Starting April 1, basic salaries will be raised: from the wage coefficient of 0.8 and 0.9 up to 1. This means an increase from 11% up to 25% of the basic wages of workers, additional personnel and special personnel from all the branches of the social sector. Also, starting this date the priority indexes will be applied for the employees working in education, culture, art, sports, science. However, civil servants and military will not benefit from these increases. Starting July 1, the increases for work experience will be applied for the employees who haven’t benefited earlier from the mentioned increase. Starting September 1, the priority index for teaching staff from pre-school and other forms of education of “1.10” will increase up to “1.20”, a level which is provided for the teaching staff in general secondary education. Additional means which are needed for the implementation of the bill is estimated at about MDL 338 mln. According to the data on January 1, 2007, the amount of the wage fund constituted about MDL 3.8 bln.