The negotiations between the IMF and the Government of Moldova on a new cooperation program start next week. They are expected to be completed by the end of this year. “Everything depends on the policies that the Government will propose for this program,” Max Alier, who substituted Nicolay Gueorguiev as head of the IMF mission for Moldova, told the press, quoted by IPN.

Max Alier didn’t give other details about the program and didn’t say if it will also have a financial component or only a consultative one, as it was announced earlier in discussions centering on the relations between Moldova and the IMF, which involved governmental and nongovernmental experts.

For his part, Nikolay Gueorguiev said that Moldova took a leading position among the countries of the region by the cumulative value of the GDP for three years. The rate of inflation is within the target range of the National Bank of Moldova. Salaries in the real economy and the budgetary sphere increased, leading to a rise in revenues per capita.

According to Nikolay Gueorguiev, the Government must continue to pay increased attention to the quality of economic growth. “Surely, the rise in internal consumption is one of the economic growth stimuli. But consumption must be stimulated not only by the rising remittances from the relatives working abroad. The second engine should be put into operation by improving the business environment, attracting investments, and increasing exports,” said the IMF official.

He also said that the latest amendments to the legislation on financial institutions, including aimed at increasing transparency as regards share ownership in the banking system, are good. As to the fiscal policy documents for 2014, Gueorguiev said it is better to delay their presentation by a month than to present them in a hurry. They must be discussed and accepted by all the interested sides – the Government, different central and local authorities, businessmen, civil society.

IMF Resident Representative in Moldova Tokhir Mirzoev said the IMF maintains its economic growth forecast for Moldova for 2013 at 4%. In the first quarter of 2013, real GDP grew by 3.5% after a contraction of 0.8% in 2012.