The Romanian Consulate in Chisinau increased the number of its employees by 16 to 50 to better handle the large number of visa applicants in Moldova, the Romanian media reports. According to the Romanian Government, the personnel augmentation was needed in order to reduce the time required for paperwork and passport issuance, as well as for processing applications for citizenship, records, marital status and other kinds of papers. As of the end of September, the Romanian Consulate in Chisinau issued some 63,000 visas. The Romanian Government has earlier forecast that, keeping the same pace, the number of issued visas would amount to 84,000 per year, in contrast to the estimated number of applications – 150,000. In addition to this measure, the Consulate recently said it would rent a roomier building to increase the processing capacity.