Owner of cars with foreign plates have half a year to comply with legal requirements

Cars with plates registered abroad and introduced in Moldova before April 4, 2011, can circulate until January 1, 2012, as Parliament adopted a legislative proposal to this effect, Info-Prim Neo reports. Deputy Minister of Finance Gheorghe Trocin told the Parliament's meeting that extending the deadline until January 1 would allow finding a definitive solution for the problem so that all car owners were equal before the law. “Natural persons, residents or not, who introduced vehicles with foreign plates, must find solutions for transferring property of these vehicles. This is why the delay of deadline until January 1 was needed”, said Trocin. MPs Adrian Candu (PDM) and Valeriu Munteanu (PL) replied that the Executive had to come up with a real solution, not a delay. “People are forced to sell their cars and find solutions by themselves”, said Candu. “This is a temporary delay and not a final solution. Will we definitively solve this problem or we’ll have to delay the deadline once again?”, asked Valeriu Munteanu. Liberal Gheorghe Brega added that after January 1, people would have to burn their cars or to register them in the Transnistrian region. Cars introduced into Moldova under a temporary placement regime, meaning without customs clearance, can stay legally in the country no longer than 90 days a year. Owners of such cars, who bought their vehicles before the Fiscal Code amendments, ask authorities to be allowed to register their cars in Moldova regardless of the vehicle’s age, as the law forbids the import of cars older than 7 years.