In case of an emergency, the state reserves will be enough to cover two million people for a period of two months. Coal reserves are 100% full, fuel oil storage levels are 80%, and wheat reserves are filled to 94% of the storage capacity, Marin Lisî, director of the Agency for Material Reserves, told the RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service.

This year the Government decided to increase wheat reserves by 113%. In August, the Agency announced a tender process to buy 42,000 tonnes of food-grade wheat, but it failed. The repeated call for bids held in September was also unsuccessful, with no bidders showing interest.

After the start of the war in Ukraine and the influx of refugees into Moldova, the Agency provided consistent support for creating temporary refugee centers at the Palanca and Otaci border crossings. In addition, aid was also sent to Ukraine. The Agency purchased a wide range of goods, including folding and metal beds, pillows, vegetable oil, fuel oil, canned food and wheat, worth hundreds of millions of lei.

Now the Agency plans to buy 67 cast-iron stoves for heating, nine reinforced concrete poles for high-voltage electricity transmission lines, 20 rowing and motor boats, 20 tonnes of canned stewed meat. The value of the contracts amounts to 7.5 million lei.

The agency does not indicate the purpose in the description of the purchased goods. When asked by RFE/RL to specify the purpose or frequency of purchases, the Agency replied that the information is classified. It revealed however that stocks are replenished annually and that a large part of the purchases made are in connection with the “regional threats”.