Moldova negotiates admission to CEFTA

A fresh round of talks on trade exchange liberalization among CEFTA member-countries - Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia - kicked off on Thursday, October 19 in Brussels. The agenda of the fourth CEFTA meeting includes also negotiations for admission of new members in the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA). Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Moldova and Albania are due to join CEFTA soon, foreign press informs. The participants of the two-day meeting in Brussels planned to resume drafting of the new agreement, due to replace the network of 31 bilateral trade agreements which are currently in force. The aim of the accord on amending and supplementing the incumbent CEFTA Agreement is to create better business climate and to boost results of the overall trade exchange among CEFTA members. CEFTA is the most important multilateral agreement on free trade in the region of the Central and Southeastern Europe. The Agreement was signed on December 21, 1992 at Krakow (Poland) and came into force on January 1, 1993, having as founding countries Czechoslovakia – subsequently Czech Republic and Slovakia, Poland and Hungary. CEFTA is considered to be a necessary stage before participating to EU’s market.