● MONDAY, January 23
Moldova’s Railways” pays fine of over 1.3m lei into state budget
The state-run company “Moldova’s Railways” paid a fine of 1 389 039 lei into the state budget after it lost in court a case over violation of the Law on Competition Protection. The lawsuit was filed by the Competition Council in 2013, says a press release of the Council. “Moldova’s Railways” was accused of applying a differentiated rail freight transport tariff for some of business entities to the detriment of others.
12 candidates for post of NAER director
Twelve persons have applied for the post of director of the Administration Board of the National Agency for Energy Regulation (NAER). The Parliament’s commission on economy, budget and finance said applications were submitted by Ion Matei, Mihail Cernei, Alexandru Lupan, Iurie Ursu, Vasile Daud, Ruslan Surugiu, Sergiu Ungureanu, Tudor Copaci, Adrian Cazacu, Anatolie Cainareanu, Victor Parlicov, and Dorin Dushchak.
Swedish experts to help modernize food safety watchdog
Experts of the Swedish Research Council for Agricultural Sciences will offer assistance to the National Food Safety Agency in working out the internal documents, agreeing inspection procedures and organizing training sessions for its employees. The technical assistance project “Strengthening capacities in the food safety area” will be implemented during 2017-2019 and is financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. The project has a budget of 21 million Swedish kronas (about €2m).
● TUESDAY, January 24
Italians looking for possibilities of extending economic cooperation with Transnistria
A delegation of Italian industrialists paid a fact-finding visit to the Transnistrian region in order to explore possibilities of establishing economic cooperation relations. The Italian guests – president of the Chamber of Commerce of the Province of Pezzaro and Urbino Alberto Drudi, representative of the textiles and banking sectors of Milan Maristella Miatello, and expert of Diletta company Mauro Murgea – presented a series of proposals to supply Italian furniture and clothes to Transnistria.
Gasoline prices to be raised, diesel fuel to be cheapened
The National Agency for Energy Regulation announced the fuel price ceilings for the next two weeks. Starting with January 25, the price ceiling for a liter of gasoline will be higher, while for a liter of diesel fuel will be slightly lower. A liter of gasoline called 95 will cost at most 18.11 lei, up 0.12 lei from the current price, while a liter of diesel fuel will be sold for at most 15.54 lei, as opposed to 15.61 lei during the past two weeks.
● WEDNESDAY, January 25
Over 50 regional development projects to be implemented during next four years
Fifty-two new regional development projects will be implemented in 2017- 2020, according to the Common Program Document approved by the Cabinet. The Common Program Document covers a short period of time and is designed to achieve the general objective of the National Regional Development Strategy of October 13, 2013. The strategy aims to ensure balanced and sustainable development in all the regions of Moldova and high-quality services for the population, regardless of the place of residence. The program also includes ten projects that were launched earlier and need to be completed.
● THURSDAY, January 26
Mobile traffic exceeds 40%
Forty of 100 website postings are from mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablet PCs. Half a year ago, mobile traffic represented only 23%. The Internet users in Moldova spend over 13 hours on average a month on mobile devices and about 15 hours a month on desktop computers. The largest part of the time is allotted for visiting social networking sites, shows data of the Audit Bureau of Circulations and Internet. The Bureau’s executive director Stanislav Popov said Moldova meets the global trends as regards connection to the Internet from mobile devices. The expansion is due to the increase in the number of devices by which the Internet is accessed, the much more convenient browsing through mobile devices and lower cost of mobile Internet in Moldova compared with the neighboring countries.
Banking sector is still exposed to vulnerabilities, “Expert-Grup”
The authorities took a number of important measures to increase the banking sector’s resistance. Though progress was made, the sector remains exposed to vulnerabilities, which can compromise the durability of reforms, consider experts of the independent think tank “Expert-Grup”. These underlined the necessity of strictly fulfilling the commitments made to the International Monetary Fund so as not to endanger the provision of foreign financial support. In August-December 2016, the experts monitored the main actions taken by the authorities. Among these is the conversion of the guarantees provided to three banks into public debt. From legal perspective, this step was the only one possible following the fulfillment of the commitments undertaken by the Government by issuing guarantees in 2014-2015, Eugen Giletski told a news conference.
Phytosanitary control will be carried out outside customs posts
In order to facilitate the flow of goods, the phytosanitary and sanitary-veterinary procedures required on export will be modified. The phytosanitary control will be carried out outside customs posts and the need of border checks will be thus excluded. The changes will be soon presented to the Government for approval. The announcement was made by the director general of the National Food Safety Agency Gheorghe Gaberi during Prime Minister Pavel Filip’s visit to the Costesti-Stanca customs post.
● FRIDAY, January 27
Financial-banking crisis isn’t yet over, experts
The banking frauds of 2014-2015 left systemic vulnerabilities unsolved. The problem of lack of shareholder transparency in Moldovan banks and the unclear mechanisms for preventing new banking fraud schemes can lead to a repeat of the banking crisis, says a publication about the risks of 2017 that was presented by the Institute for Development and Social Initiative “Viitorul”. Expert Ion Tabarta said that even if particular measures were taken to secure this sector, a lack of transparency is anyway witnessed. “We have no reason to say that the crisis in the financial sector is over and this cannot reappear in 2017, especially because we have vulnerable banks that are being monitored,” he stated.
Transnistrian Audit Office to monitor how housing companies spend collected funds
Additional control will be carried out in the Transnistrian region over the spending of funds accumulated by housing companies as payments for housing services from the population. The reported abusive use of the collected funds was discussed in a meeting of the legislative committee for regional policy of Transnistria. “The performance of control over the reasonable use of funds and stating of the identified violations will be the duties of the Audit Office,” said the committee’s head, deputy Oleg Vasilatii. He underlined the necessity of creating a system for monitoring the spending of funds on housing maintenance and public services.
Companies with more than five employees to submit digital fiscal reports
Starting with this year, the business entities with more than five employees are to present the mandatory fiscal reports in electronic form. The State Tax Service called on these to connect to digital fiscal services as soon as possible so as to avoid crowdedness.
● SATURDAY, January 28
Government looking for mechanisms to fight illegal payment of salaries and underground economy
The diminution of underground economy and fighting of illegal payment of salaries was discussed by Prime Minister Pavel Filip with representatives of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which implements the UK Government’s Good Governance Fund. The Premier underlined the importance of a balanced and equitable fiscal burden for stimulating business entities to work legally. Pavel Filip underlined that a working group was created under the Premier’s Economic Council. This identified a number of constraints and formulated proposals for fighting the illegal payment of salaries and the black economy. In this connection, the Prime Minister inquired about the results of the study to increase the level of collected taxes by implementing measures to reduce the underground economy, which was carried out by representatives of PwC within the activities of the Good Governance Fund.
