European Union Council will authorise asymmetric trade regime for Moldova at end-January

The Council of the European Union will sanction the granting of autonomous trading preferences to Moldova on January 21, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Valeriu Ostalep announced at a working meeting in the Government, Info-Prim Neo reports. A temporary decision to grant autonomous trading preferences to Moldova was taken in mid November. The given proposal and the details concerning the categories of goods that will be covered by the asymmetric trade regime (without export duties) were sent to the EU member states for approval. According to Minister of Economy and Trade Igor Dodon, the obtaining of trading preferences in the commercial relations with the EU member states was the Government’s priority in the last two years. By this decision, the European Commission admitted that the Republic of Moldova implemented the reforms needed to obtain trading preferences, the minister said. The asymmetric trade system will include all the categories of goods that can be produced in Moldova – about 12,000 categories. At the initial stage, the EU could set quotas on certain sensitive products for the EU markets. An export quota can be introduced on the Moldovan sugar and wine. Among the CIS states, only Moldova and Georgia obtained the GSP Plus incentive for exports to the EU. No CIS country benefits from asymmetric trade. Recently, Prime Minister Vasile Tarlev expressed his concern that the Moldovan economic entities could not make use of the advantages offered by the asymmetric trade regime with the EU immediately after it takes effect. According to the Premier, the national economic entities managed to export goods to the EU under the GSP Plus incentive only five months after Moldova obtained the given regime - on January 1, 2006 - as they did not have the necessary experience and had to reach the required quality standards.