The Moldovan leu is depreciating continuously, with some of the decision makers from the banking system favoring this phenomenon, said experts invited to the talk show “Place for dialogue” on the public station Radio Moldova, IPN reports.

Economic expert Gheorghe Costandachi made pessimistic forecasts about the stability of the national currency. “Moldova is not a producing country. We do not have surpluses of products and we cannot count on the stability of the leu in the current conditions. The Moldovan economy depends a lot on Russia’s economy, which is in recession. Russia’s bans on the import of Moldovan fruit affected our exports in proportion of at most 8%. But we also export industrial products to Russia and the exports of such products diminished owing to the situation there. It’s practically impossible to export these products to the EU as they do not meet the quality standards. Therefore, the national currency will only decrease in value,” he stated.

Costandachi also said that besides the foreign shocks, there are a number of internal factors that caused the depreciation of the Moldovan leu. “What is going on now in the Moldovan banking system surely affected the stability of the leu. There are centers of influence in the banking sector, which cause a shortage of currency. The hypothesis that the leu started to depreciate after the theft committed at Banca de Economii is logical as a large amount of currency had to be bought from the Moldovan market in order to make the taking of money out of the country possible,” he stated.

Economic expert Viorel Garbu said the issuing of lei without currency cover is another cause that led to the depreciation of the Moldovan leu. “The National Bank put into circulation over 4 billion new lei without currency cover. The central bank’s governor should have intervened earlier. He did it too late and inefficiently,” he stated.