Moldova is the first country which has exerted the full presidency (during a whole year) in the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA), renewed in the second half of 2007. This period is marked by many achievements, deputy minister of economy and trade Tudor Copaci stated on Wednesday, February 11, at a conference of totalizing the activities unfolded by Moldova during its mandate, Info-Prim Neo reports. Tudor Copaci specified the increases of trade exchanges between Moldova and the CEFTA states. If in 2006-2007 the trade totaled $14 million, then in 2008 it reached $25 million, including exports of $14.4 million, that is $6 million more compared to 2007, the deputy minister said. Moldova mainly exports to to Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania. During the Moldovan presidency in this regional arrangement, the work of the CEFTA secretariat was launched, three important sittings of the CEFTA subcommittees were organized in Chisinau, Podgorica (Montenegro) and Belgrade (Serbia). At the sittings, subjects dealing with the regional trade with produce, capitalizing the quota provided in the agreement, ousting the tariff and non-tariff barriers in the trade among the signing countries were considered, Tudor Copaci highlighted. At the reunion of the CEFTA Joint Commission of October 8, in Chisinau, they negotiated and signed agreements regarding the multilateral recognition of origin certificates and regarding the exchange of information about the customs and statistic data among the member states. “Moldova made progress in building some CEFTA structures, as strengthening the trading relations between the signatory countries. We believe that these results are a good basis, and these activities are to be continued by the present presidency held by Montenegro,” Wolfgang Behrendt, the chief of the Political and Economic Direction of the European Commission’s Delegation to Moldova stated. Jo Declercq, the team leader of the TACIS project, through which Moldova was offered assistance during its presidency in CEFTA, said the positive evolution of Moldova is a good sign. The agreement has also an economic and political importance for Moldova, taking into consideration Moldova’s option for the European integration, as the EU watches very attentively all the activities within this regional agreement. “Deepening the trading relations with the CEFTA member states, staging some coordinated and well-set actions will be an important element when Moldova negotiates with the EU an agreement on free trade,” Jo Declercq said. Finishing the negotiations and extending the trade preferences to cover agricultural products, extending the cooperation with the EU and other international structures, developing and promoting some common projects are planned for this year. CEFTA is a regional agreement with a high degree of liberalization, especially of the trade with industrial products, with transparent mechanisms of enacting the measures of commercial protection and having a mechanism of its own to settle commercial issues. CEFTA provides some taxes or quotas on agricultural products, and they are to be gradually annulled. The Central European Free Trade Agreement's initial members were Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and other countries, which then became EU members. In 2007, the renewed Agreement was signed by Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo and Moldova.