The war in the neighboring country influences the level of prices as the Republic of Moldova had to stop imports from Ukraine and to start to import products from other countries, which are more expensive, said Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilița. According to the official, the soaring prices are typical of the whole region and the executive cannot influence these trends. But the authorities are making effort to help the people gain purchasing power and the indexation of pensions is a first step in this direction, IPN reports.
Under the Government’s decision, pensions will be indexed by 13.94% on April 1, in accordance with the inflation rate at the end of 2021. Furthermore, all the calculated pensions will be raised by 171.71 lei by the mechanism to transpose the economic growth to pensions. Premier Gavrilița said that this way the authorities try to help the citizens cope with the new wave of price rises.
“All the pensioners with pensions lower than 9,900 lei will benefit from this indexation of 13.94%. Those whose pensions are larger will not. This is a possibility for directing more resources to those with low incomes. We focus on the increase of purchasing power. The social benefits and disability pensions will also be indexed,” Natalia Gavrilița stated in the talk show “Secrets for the Power” on JurnalTV channel.
According to official reports, inflation in Moldova in February was 18.5%. Moldova is the country with the highest rate of inflation in Europe. In Ukraine, inflation was 10.7%.
“The rate of inflation is controlled by the National Bank. The NBM should take decisions and manage inflation. We yet see that this is a global phenomenon. Inflation in the Republic of Moldova is influenced by the scale of the economy, which is very dependent on imported energy resources whose prices rose worldwide. We do not have natural gas and oil and therefore depend on the developments on international markets. The war in Ukraine made us reorient from Ukrainian imports to imports from other states where the products are more expensive. They are probably of a higher quality, but they cost more. The Government’s role is to increase the population’s incomes,” said the Premier.
Besides the prices of products, the tariffs of electricity will also increase. According to a decision by the National Agency for Energy Regulation, the electricity rate for household users in central and southern Moldova as from April 1 could be raised from 1.51 to 2.17 lei per kWh (without VAT), while for those from the northern districts – from 2.04 to 2.51 lei.
