President Igor Dodon requested his Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella to allow the Moldovan citizens to enter Italy if they present COVID-19 test certificates and undertake to do the test again after entering Italy. The two officials had a telephone conversation on July 29, IPN reports.
President Dodon said he noted that the COVID-19 pandemic stopped the exchanges between the two states and affected the movement of people.
In another development, the official thanked Italy for the assistance provided in promoting the reform agenda of Moldova, including as regards the European integration. “I welcomed the fact that about 1,400 enterprises with Italian capital are registered in the Republic of Moldova and that investments in share capital total about 1.8 billion lei. This way Italy ranks first by the number of enterprises with foreign capital in our country. In 2019, Italy was the fourth most important commercial partner of the Republic of Moldova with a share of 7.8% of the trade,” Igor Dodon posted on Facebook.
Italy is one of the European countries in which most of the Moldovans go to work. Some of them settled there and return to Moldova only to visit relatives. According to the Association “AssoMoldave”, there are about 150,000 citizens with a Moldovan passport in Italy, but the number of Moldovans there is actually higher as many of them have also Romanian passports or obtained Italian nationality after staying for ten years there.
The Italian authorities maintain the entrance restrictions for the citizens of a number of states, including the Republic of Moldova, until July 31.
