Moldovan-Turkish free trade agreement to be signed in spring

The free trade agreement between Moldova and Turkey will be signed during the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Moldova scheduled for May. The information was made public in the last round of the talks on the liberalization of the trade regime between Moldova and Turkey that took place in Chisinau on February 13-14, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting a communiqué from the Economy Ministry. Currently, the commercial relations are regulated by the GSP Plus system that is an asymmetric preferential trade regime offered by Turkey to Moldova and enables exporting Moldovan industrial products without customs duties. The future agreement will liberalize the commercial exchanges for about 9,000 kinds of products. “In order to protect the national producers, transition periods of 3, 5 and 7 years were negotiated for a series of industrial products such as textiles, carpets, furniture, some of the construction materials, plastic products and others,” said the head of the Economy Ministry’s General Commercial Policies Division Inga Ionesii. Another result of the talks is the quotas agreed by the countries for agricultural products. The Moldovan companies will be able to export about 30 products within quotas, including sugar, grain, wine, vegetables, dairy and tobacco products. Moldova offered Turkey quotas for fresh and dried fruit, patisserie products, juices, olive oil, fish, etc. Trade between Moldova and Turkey in the first 11 months of 2012 totaled over US$402 million, up 2.4% compared with the corresponding period of 2011. The signing of the Moldovan-Turkish free trade agreement is a precondition imposed by the EU in negotiating the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement between Moldova and the EU.