Moldova today signed an amended version of the Memorandum of Cooperation with the American state of North Carolina. The partnership also gets a 5-year extension.

“We have a partnership which this year marks 20 years, and naturally this calls for stock-taking and for setting out priorities for the next period”, Prime Minister Pavel Filip stated during the signing ceremony.

In education, the prime minister noted that the partnership helped over a thousand students and teachers get training and scholarships. In defense and security, in the last few years alone over a thousand military men from Moldova were able to participate in drills and training courses organized by the North Carolina National Guard. Humanitarian cooperation is also an important component of this partnership, says the prime minister, with a multitude of charity projects implemented.

Today’s update of the Memorandum will enable new partnerships for the academia and for the industrial sector, the ICT sector, as well as in economy and trade, among other fields.

North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall likened the partnership to a seed that was planted 20 years ago and which has grown to become a solid tree with many branches: humanitarian, medical, pharmaceutical, agricultural, and educational, among others. Today new branches are added, including economic development, and these branches are set to become even more solid, said the North Carolina official.

Elaine Marshall also recalled her state’s official motto, a Latin phrase from Cicero’s “On Friendship” treatise. “We are your friends, rather than say to be your friends”, was her take on “Esse quam videri”.