Scores of small traders gathered together in front of the Government Building on July 13 and demanded that the executive should endorse an initiative to abrogate the legal provisions that ban trade based on patent from 2017. The protesters said that these provisions will criminalize their activities and they will have to leave their families and go abroad to work, IPN reports.

Eugen Roscovan, chairman of the Small Business Association of Moldova, said the parliamentary commission on economy, budget and finance recently approved the initiative to abrogate the ban on patent-based trade that is to take effect on January 1, 2017. For this initiative to be put to the vote in Parliament, the Government must endorse it.

Recently, the Small Business Association said the reforms in the area of small business are blocked, while the draft law on SMEs ignores the principles of the Small Business Act for Europe. Eugen Roscovan noted that if the provisions banning trade based on patent starting with 2017 are not annulled, thousands of small traders will be liable to fines and will have to give bribe for being allowed to work, given that they do not have other sources of income.

The protesters chanted that they want to be able to work at home so that their children do not remain alone at home, with the parents working abroad to have a source of livelihood. They said they now work legally and contribute to augmenting the local and national public budgets and need to be supported or at least not to be hampered to work.