Moldova speaker says Moldova should stay in CIS due to commercial-economic reasons

Moldova should stay in CIS as long as it can have supplementary commercial and economic advantages, the speaker of the Parliament, Marian Lupu declared in an interview offered to the Romanian newspaper “Adevarul”. “The appropriate time for reconsidering our participation in CIS will come when these advantages disappear”, Lupu said. At the same time, the speaker of the Parliament considers that “there are no important contradictions between our participation in CIS and our European integration goal, for the simple reason that in CIS we participate only economically”. “CIS was never an efficient integration instrument for its members. Even legally speaking, one will never find multilateral agreements in CIS, however one can find bilateral agreements on the same issue: Moldova-Russia, Moldova-Ukraine, Moldova-Kazahstan. Everyone understands that CIS was created for a more civilized and calm divorce after the break up of the USSR. At present the Republic of Moldova has bilateral agreements on free trade with all CIS members, a situation that is presented to investors as an advantage for the development of business in Moldova. However, the Russian Federation, which is the main market in CIS, introduced a series of bans for the Moldovan products, more, for the products which constitute the main export categories of Moldova. In the first 7 months of 2006, Moldova exported to CIS goods amounting to USD 240.8 mln, by 20.3% less compared with the similar period of the last year. As a result, the share of CIS in the exports of Moldova has reduced by 50.4%, up to 44.3%. At the same time, the imports from CIS amounted to USD 546.9 mln, by 13.7% more. The share of CIS in the total imports constitutes 39.4%.