The actions to block smuggling announced by the Transnistrian administration may cause a rise in prices on the right side of the Nistru and a deficit of products, IPN reports, quoting a Friday editorial of the editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Panorama” Vladimir Thoric, which is titled “Tiraspol closed ‘life road”.

According to the paper, several sale points from settlements controlled by the Moldovan constitutional authorities sold 20-30% of the merchandise brought from storehouses of the Transnistrian region. “If the Transnistrian administration aims to really stop deliveries to the right side, on which VAT is not paid, a deficit will be faced not only traders, but also by consumers,” said Vladimir Thoric.

A number of sources in “Panorama” said that medicines, clothes, meat products and fuel are monthly brought legally and partially legally to the right bank of the Nistru through the customs posts and migration posts from the Security Zone and by hidden ways and with the help of rafts.

According to ex-minister of the interior Victor Catana, up to 50% of the goods have been smuggled to the right bank of the river for many years. “The fact that the imports of some goods in the region are several times larger than the needs shows that these goods are sold somewhere,” he stated, adding that a part of them, especially alcoholic beverages and cigarettes, are allegedly taken to Europe by transit.

The sources in the newspaper consider that many traders now think how to fill the deficit of goods on the right bank of the Nistru and what will happen to the prices.