The loan of US$34.9 million from the International Monetary Fund will be made available after the IMF Management and the Executive Board approve the lending expectedly in June, Minister of Finance Octavian Armasu stated in the talk show “Issue of the day” on Canal2 channel, IPN reports.
According to him, for the money to reach the Republic of Moldova, the agenda agreed with the IMF should be followed. “As regards public finances, we and the IMF agreed the macro-financial framework where, based on the economic growth, import, export and salary forecasts, we project the budget revenues and set objectives related to the costs, deficit and how we will finance this deficit. Based on these forecasts, we will work out the medium-term budgetary framework, the budget for 2019 and will rectify the 2018 budget,” stated Octavian Armasu. Among other set goals, he mentioned the strengthening of the role of the National Bank of Moldova, elimination of non-transparent shareholders from the banking system and recovery of stolen assets.
The minister noted that the interest rate on the loan is very low – zero for half of the credit and 1-2% a year for the other half. “The loan will be used to finance general state budget needs,” stated Octavian Armasu, specifying that the money will be spent on road projects and reform programs, such as the police and justice sector reforms.
Director of the Market Economy Institute Roman Chirca said the disbursement of the IMF loan will represent coming of money to the state budget and also maintaining of the role played by this Moldova – IMF interaction system in opening up particular technical assistance programs provided by the development partners. “Not all the development partners can understand exactly what is going on in the Republic of Moldova. Therefore they bank on the IMF, whose role is to supervise the functionality and implementation of reforms in the Republic of Moldova,” he stated.
IMF staff and the Moldovan authorities reached staff-level agreement on the third review under an economic reform program supported by a three-year Extended Credit Facility and Extended Fund Facility arrangement. An IMF mission led by Ben Kelmanson visited Chisinau during March 15-27 and held discussions with the Moldovan authorities on the third review. Moldova’s three-year IMF program, approved on November 7, 2016, is supported by a loan of SDR 129.4 million (about US$187 million, or about ¾ of the Republic of Moldova’s quota), of which SDR 57.4 million (about US$83 million) have been already disbursed.
