Ex-Minister for Economy: Financial crisis can bring advantages to Moldova

The moves undertaken by the National Bank of Moldova (BNM), their being coordinated with the Government rather successfully lately will hopefully yield the results we expect and the Moldovan banking system may pass unaffected by the consequences of the world financial crisis, says Valeriu Lazar, the manager of a consulting company and former Minister for Economy and Commerce, quoted by Info-Prim Neo. According to Lazar, the negative consequences will be more manifest in the real sector of economy. First, because Moldova is late with its structural reforms, the promotion of which entails expenses and large investment. The economic slowdown in the countries from where Moldova expects investments is bad for the results of the reforms. Valeriu Lazar considers that the speculative capital in banks is larger than established by the official statistics at 5 -8%. In his opinion, the foreign earnings also contain a certain amount of speculative capital, being know cases when Moldovan citizens take loans in the countries they work in (as a rule through third persons), and deposit the money in Moldovan banks. On the other hand, Lazar considers this crisis can have some positive effects for Moldova, especially for changing the structure of investment, for steering them toward production. “Certainly, some investors can pull out or can not keep their commitments and promises. The crisis however is a kind of purgatory: only the serious investors will remain. They well realize that the gauge of profit from commerce cannot be as it was in Moldova some 2-3 years ago. They could possibly re-orient towards production,” he specified. In his opinion, the Government should insure the access of foreign investments to uncapitalized investments that Moldova has scores of in agriculture and other important production sectors, should better promote the public-private partnership in energy, road building, and other important infrastructure projects.