● MONDAY, August 25
“Moldova Fruct” puts forward demands
The Association of Fruit Producers and Exporters “Moldova Fruct” considers the Government’s efforts to reduce the consequences of the ban on the import of Moldovan fruit imposed by Russia are late, fragmented, incoherent and leave room for interpretation. Therefore, the association adopted a resolution that contains a number of demands. The fruit producers and exporters propose creating a coordination group managed by the Prime Minister or a Deputy Prime Minister by September 1. The group will monitor the issues concerning the situation in the fruit-growing sector and will stage meetings with producers, processors and other persons involved every week or more often. The provision of financial support to growers of summer apples, autumn apples and plums should be approved by August 31. By September 30, resources should be identified to help sell the winter apples.
● TUESDAY, August 26
World Bank facilitates Moldovan producers’ market access
Five groups of producers from the field of horticulture will benefit from investment grants within the Facilitation of Access to Export Markets component of the World Bank-funded Moldova Agricultural Competitiveness Project. The grants total 17.8 million lei. Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vasile Bumacov said the financial resources allocated by the World Bank and the own investments of 27.4 million lei will be used to purchase and set up refrigerating facilities and washing, sorting and packing lines.
New segments of local roads to be rehabilitated with Compact funds
The U.S. Government’s Compact will rehabilitate 7 km of national and local roads additionally to the 93 km Sarateni-Soroca road. The rehabilitation of the additional road segments will cost about US$4.3 million. The new road segments to be rehabilitated include a 1.2 km segment of the local road to the Soroca town and a 1.6 km segment of the R14 road stretching from the Sarateni-Junction to Balti and the access road to the fire station in the Soroca town. Moreover, the public parking lots will be paved and new bus stations will be built for the communities along the Sarateni-Soroca road. The deadline for performance of the new works was extended till the end of September 2014.
“Moldtelecom” gets two licenses for mobile communications
The National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology on August 26 issued two licenses for using radio resources for providing public ground mobile communications services and networks to the mobile phone carrier SA “Moldtelecom”. The licenses are valid for a period of 15 years, starting with November 6 this year. According to a communiqué of ANRCETI, “Moldtelecom” transferred the equivalent in Moldovan lei of €11.5 million to the state budget for the two licenses.
Loan of €120m for horticultural sector
The European Investment Bank (EIB) will offer Moldova a loan of €120 million for implementing the project “Moldova’s Orchard”, which is aimed at modernizing and restructuring the sector of horticulture. The Government on August 26 approved the bill to ratify the financing agreement signed with the EIB on July 31, 2014. The loan is repayable in 12 years at an interest rate of 0.75% a year, with a grace period of four years. Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vasile Bumacov said the horticultural sector’s exports over the last 10 years rose 4.3 times and exceeded the growth rate of the total exports.
Industrial park to be set up in Comrat
The municipal public amenities enterprise “Gospodaria Locativ- Comunala din Comrat” will turn into an industrial park. The Comrat Municipal Council leased out a piece of agricultural land that is 50.3 hectares in area to the enterprise for a period of 30 years. Investments of 1.8 billion lei are to be made in creating and developing the technical and production infrastructure of the industrial park.
Moldovan company managers to be trained in Germany
The cooperation with Germany in training managers of Moldovan companies will go on. The Government approved a decision to initiate and sign a relevant joint statement between the Ministry of Economy of Moldova and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy of Germany. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Andrian Candu said the program of cooperation in training company managers was signed with the German side in 2008. A number of 145 Moldovan managers received training at German companies within it.
Moldovan apples with Belarusian documents stopped at Russian customs post
Russia’s Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance “Rosselhoznadzor” banned the import of 20 tonnes of apples into Russia. The documents accompanying the merchandize showed that the apples were imported from Belarus by a private producer. But the packing marks showed that the apples were grown in Moldova. According to a communiqué of the Russian authority, besides the difference between the marks and the documents accompanying the consignment, discrepancies were also identified in the accompanying phytosanitary documents.
● THURSDAY, August 28
Almost 3bn minutes spoken over mobile phone in first half of year
The voice traffic in the mobile telephone networks in January – June rose by 11.2% compared with the corresponding period last year, exceeding 2.9 billion minutes, shows statistical data of the ICT regulator ANRCETI. SA “Moldcell reported an increase of 46.1% in the voice traffic, SA “Orange Moldova” of 2.8% to over 2bn minutes, while SA “Moldtelecom” a decrease of 3.6% to 153.4 million minutes. The customers of SA “Orange Moldova” spoke 260 minutes on average a month over the mobile phone, of SA “Moldcell” - 143 minutes, while of SA “Moldtelecom” – 106 minutes.
Passengers of Chisinau International Airport receive Moldovan apples
In connection with the national holidays, SRL “Avia Invest”, which manages the Chisinau International Airport, offered Moldovan apples to all the passengers of the flights operated through the airport. The event was held on the Independence Day, on August 27, and will be repeated on August 31, when it is celebrated the Romanian Language Day. By such an action, the company’s administration aims to increase the attention paid to passengers from the terminal and to support the national producers.
● FRIDAY, August 29
Control over land property regime will be stricter
State inspection in the field of land relations will be carried out by the Agency for Land Relations and Cadastre through the agency of the State Inspectorate for Land Relations and Geodesy, together with its local inspectorates. Relevant amendments to the Land Code and other legal acts have been approved by the Government. The inspections performed over the last few years revealed 823 cases of erecting of constructions on farmland. The modification of the purpose of the given land wasn’t compensated, as the legislation provides. Thus, the agricultural sector sustained losses of 185 million lei.
Moldovan migrants keep €6bn in ‘socks’
Victor Lutenco, head of the Bureau for Diaspora Relations, considers the Moldovan authorities must accelerate the formulation of efficient policies to attract to the national economy €6 billion that the Moldovan migrants working abroad keep in ‘socks’. In the program “Without myths” held in the studio of the Chisinau newspaper “Panorama”, Lutenco said that besides the €1.6 billion that the Moldovans from abroad send home, which is about one quarter of the country’s GDP, our compatriots have personal savings kept at home, not in banks as they do not trust them much.
Government will consider freezing penalties imposed on winemakers
The Government will examine the possibility of freezing the penalties for the overdue payment of taxes imposed on winemakers. Prime Minister Iurie Leanca asked the Ministry of Finance to immediately present information about the accumulated penalties. The issue was discussed in a meeting with winemakers held in the Government Building. The meeting centered on the work of wine factories and the difficulties that appear in the process of purchasing grapes. “We do everything we can to prevent the appearance of problems in your work. We are making effort to find the best solutions for you and the state,” said the head of Government.
● SATURDAY, August 30
Number of new apartments put in commission goes down
As many as 1,099 new apartments were put in commission in January-June, a decrease of 9.1% compared with the corresponding period last year. In the urban areas, there were put in commission 785 apartments or 70.2% of the total number, a decrease of 7.8% compared with January-June 2013. At regional level, the largest number of new apartments was made available in the municipality of Chisinau, where there were put in commission 680 new apartments or 62.6% of the total volume (-20.5%).
