Economic decline in Chisinau has deepened

The socioeconomic results in the municipality of Chisinau for the first half of this year show that the economic decline in the capital city has worsened. The volume of freight fell two times, while sales – by 58.6%, Info-Prim Neo reports. Only the sales of food products saw an insignificant growth of 3.7%. According to the General Economy and Reforms Division of the Chisinau Municipal Council, the distance covered by the goods carried by all kinds of transport over the first six months of this year was 429.2 million tonne/km, a decrease of 25.1% compared with the corresponding period last year. The volume of freight dropped by 51.2% to 816,700 tonnes. 32.9 million people were transported by buses and minibuses, down 1.4%. The distance covered by the passengers was 611.0 million passengers/km, down 9.9%. “The retail sales totaled 5.086,5 billion lei, a decrease of 6.6% compared with January-June last year,” said the Department’s head Mihaela Iacob. “The volume of sold goods, which has been permanently on the rise, decreased by over 50% in the first half of the year. We thus can say that the economic decline has depended.” The preliminary data show that the private economic entities over January-June this year retailed goods to the value of 2.979,1 billion lei (58.6% of the total sales), an 11.8% decrease in current prices. The sales in public retail outlets fell by 29.8%. Only the foreign and joint retail outlets saw a 3.4% rise in sales. Food products in the amount of 1.850,2 billion lei were sold over the first six months of this year, up 3.7% compared with the same period last year. The sales of food products accounted for 36.4% of the total sales in retail outlets.