The International Association of Road Haulers of Moldova (AITA) and the Union of Carriers and Road Workers requested the Government to urgently adopt measures to support transport operators so as to diminish the road transport costs and to maintain sustainability in general. The request was made in the context of the fuel and energy crisis on international markets and the war in Ukraine.
Contacted by IPN for a comment, AITA administrator Iulian Postică said that owing to the war in Ukraine, almost all the routes to the East (Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan) were suspended. Some of the carriers sustain losses and had units of transport destroyed during shelling in Ukraine.
The operators encounter difficulties in obtaining authorization for carrying freight to the EU. If the state does not intervene, the haulers will be unable to reach the East and to transport goods to the EU.
The Government should renegotiate the permit quotas with Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania Latvia, Slovenia, Italy as the given quotas were used up during half a year last year. Amid the crisis in Ukraine, they will be used even faster this year, said the AITA administrator.
The Government is also asked to offer assistance over the rising fuel prices. According to Iulian Postică, the road transport operators are practically unable to work with the current fuel prices. Among the support measures at least during the state of emergency and during the crisis in Ukraine should be the reduction of the VAT rate on fuel and refunding of the excise duties to professional haulers.
“In the current situation, the carriers are actually trapped. If they do not work, the Republic of Moldova will not have imports and exports and the whole economy will be affected,” stated Iulian Postică.
