Economic governance was influenced by electoral objectives, Expert-Grup

”The economic governance was influenced especially by the dominance of political aims over economic ones,” it is said in Number 9 of the publication “Economic Reality” launched by the Independent Analytical Center Expert-Grup. Commenting on the economic developments in Moldova in the first half of this year, one of the authors, Adrian Lupusor gave as example the new policy on the external debt. “The huge loans negotiated with Russia and China show that the government aims to accumulate political capital. It is easier to raise such loans than to negotiate a new memorandum with the IMF, which imposes conditions such as the implementation of reforms that are less popular and involve short-term costs. For instance, Bosnia, Hungary and the Baltic States, which have recently signed financing agreements with the IMF, had to cut the social spending by 10%,” he said. As Lupusor said, such loans pose greater risks as they will treble the external state debt and will cause a dangerous indebtedness level. The balance of the foreign debt will exceed the level of official foreign exchange reserves and this can affect the macroeconomic situation in the country and the stability of the national currency. The budgetary-fiscal policy was also under electoral pressure. The budget deficit exceeded 2 billion lei during six months after the expenditure rose by 10% a year following the yearly 8% decrease in the collections into the budget. This seriously affected the situation in the area of public finances. Speaking about the covering of the budget deficit by issuing state securities, which are largely purchased by commercial banks, Lupusor said that this is a highly volatile situation as most of the state securities are valid for a short period, of up to half a year, and the effects will be felt in autumn or winter, when the securities reach maturity.