Moldova is on Ukraine’s side in overcoming the blockage imposed by Polish farmers at the border with their neighboring country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an interview said that Ukraine has established several routes for agricultural exports, including through Moldova, IPN reports, with reference to gordonua.com.
He noted that Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal addressed the topic of unblocking the Ukrainian-Polish border crossing points with the Polish authorities and “everyone says they will definitely unblock the border and help Ukraine. But in the meantime, we have to do our job. And we have built several routes to bypass this blockage. Right now, it working,” stressed Zelensky.
But, according to him, “it would have been better to go through Poland, transit would have been cheaper for some goods”. “But we have to start from where we are. We have the sea, the Danube, and we have started working through Moldova and Romania. I think we have found a solution to this situation in any case,” stated Zelensky.
“Today, the Republic of Moldova ensures the transit of agricultural products from Ukraine to the European Union, taking into account the interests of Moldovan farmers and the fact that we are a country producing and exporting grains. For this reason, investments in infrastructure are an urgent necessity to meet the needs of Moldovan farmers and transit. The Republic of Moldova’s interest is to increase rail and naval transport capacities,” Minister Vladimir Bolea said following talks held last August in Galati by decision-makers of Moldova, Ukraine, Romania, the European Commission and the U.S. on grain export and transit.
IPN notes that after the meeting of the co-chairs of the Moldovan-Ukrainian Intergovernmental Commission for Trade and Economic Cooperation held on September 29, 2023 in Odessa, the Ukrainian Ministry of Reintegration on its Telegram channel announced a 27% discount for the transit of Ukrainian agricultural products through Moldova. Instead, the Moldovan side requested the elimination of the dumping duty on imports of Moldovan cement, which distorts the work of cement producing enterprises in the Republic of Moldova.
Recently, Oleksiy Danilov, former secretary of the National Security and Defense Council in Kiev, was appointed Ukraine’s new ambassador to Moldova. Volodymyr Zelensky argued that “Moldova is an extremely important state for Ukraine given the security challenges and bilateral cooperation.”
