Parliament voted a bill to reduce the prices of authorizations for international road transport in the first reading. The authors of the bill said the prices of such authorizations in Moldova are much higher than in the neighboring states. Furthermore, the national carriers pay the most expensive Green Card insurance and a road tax that is almost twice higher. As a result, the carriers lose clients and are noncompetitive on the market compared with other road carriers of the region, IPN reports.

Some of the taxes will be reduced from €700 to €120 or even ten times for a route, from €30 to €3, depending on the route.

MP Oleg Lipskii, one of the authors of the bill, said in Parliament that owing to the high taxes, about 40 road carriers stopped work, while others registered transport companies in the neighboring states and work there. The number of new units of transport purchased by national carriers decreased considerably.

The MP noted that the mechanism for issuing authorizations to road carriers should not be a system for making profit for a public institution. Also, the prices of the authorizations for international road transport issued by the National Motor Transport Agency are very high. In Ukraine, a CEMT authorization costs €50, in Romania – €75, in Russia – €230, while in Moldova - €700.

At the same time, the BSEC Permit authorizations issued in the Black Sea Basin states are provided free under a pilot project, while to the national carriers are issued or money.

According to the authors, the high tariffs led to a considerable decline in the volume of transported freight and passengers. The National Bureau of Statistics said the road carriers in January – July 2015 transported 3,874,900 tonnes of goods, 7.6% down compared with the same period of 2014. As many as 56.9 million passengers were transported by buses and minibuses in the period, a 12% decrease on 2014.