Guillermo Bettocchi, the Deputy Director of the Regional Bureau for Europe of the UN Refugee Agency, pays an official visit to the Republic of Moldova. The visit to Chisinau is the first leg of his regional mission, which will be followed by trips to Ukraine and Belarus, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting the UNHCR Office in Chisinau. In Chisinau, Guillermo Bettocchi will hold several meetings with senior officials of the Ministries of the Interior, Justice and Foreign Affairs and European Integration. The Deputy Director also plans to meet other stakeholders from the UN system and conduct consultations with civil society representatives. He will conclude his stay in Chisinau with a visit to the temporary accommodation center for refugees and asylum seekers where he will meet a group of refugees to hear about their experience and perspectives for integration in Moldova. UNHCR highly welcomes the efforts of Moldova to consolidate its national asylum system as well as the recent success made in the area of refugee protection, such as the introduction of complementary protection and improvement of the national refugee legislation, it is said in the communique. The UN Refugee Agency, which has been present in the country since 1997 and the Republic of Moldova have a long-standing history of cooperation. Moldova acceded to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol in 2001, thus undertook to protect refugees. In 2009 Moldova adopted the new Law on Asylum, which is considered by UNHCR as a very progressive step in the development of the national asylum system. In 2009 Moldova became a member the Executive Committee of UNHCR.