Minister of Economy and Trade Igor Dodon considers that the commercial relations with Romania are excellent. He made such a statement at the Ascent Business Forum organized by the Romanian consultancy company Ascent Group in Chisinau between November 8 and 9. According to Dodon, who is co-chairman of the Moldovan-Romanian intergovernmental commission for economic cooperation, despite the absence of a free trade agreement similar to the one that existed before January 1, 2007, the trade between Moldova and Romania rose by about 70% in the first seven months of this year. Currently, Romania places the third in the ranking of countries exporting to Moldova and the third among the importing countries. According to the figures for the nine months of this year, Moldova’s exports to Romania totalled 142.3 mln USD, by 35.3% more compared with the corresponding period last year. They made up 15.4% of the total exports (+ 0.8 percentage points compared with the same period last year). The imports from Romanian added up to 299.8 mln USD, a 24.5% increase compared with January-September 2006. They accounted for 11.8% of the total exports, as against 13.1% in the corresponding period last year. In the first nine months of this year, Moldova had a negative balance of trade with Romania, of 157.5 mln USD. It is by 21.7 mln USD higher than in January-September 2006. Besides the offices in Romania (Bucharest and Arad), Bulgaria and Cyprus, the territorial network of Ascent groups includes an office in Moldova (Chisinau).