Adrian Lipkan
The result is exactly the opposite of what was promised by the authorities and sugar producers
Despite the declared noble intentions, abstracting from the risk of violating international practices and norms, the Moldovan sugar industry has not been able to overcome the crisis. Its operators failed to harvest the entire 2025 crop on time, a process that dragged on through the winter until early March of this year. Despite the existence of clear internal protocols, sugar producers failed to technically prepare for the harvesting campaign to start in mid-August. They missed the most valuable days of September and October and, in effect, disrupted the sugar beet harvest.
References to unfavorable climatic conditions – rain, frost, etc.. – for “people in the field”, specialists in the sugar industry, sound like an excuse, both ridiculous and unprofessional. With proper planning and organization of the process, it was quite possible to harvest and process the entire crop with minimal losses by the end of 2025.
The consequences have been dramatic. The beet crop from about 2,500 ha was actually abandoned in the field. Beet growers lost a huge amount of money. Subjects of other food industry sectors missed an opportunity to improve their competitiveness. And the “chance to rebound” mentioned above was wasted in a textbook way.
Worst of all: the already difficult weather and climatic conditions of recent years, combined with the economic failure of the last season, drove most of the real, hardy farmers out of the sugar business. Those who grew sugar beets out of intellectual conviction and natural tenacity. Today, of the approximately 6,500 hectares planned for planting, 70% of the beet fields are concentrated in the hands of one farmer affiliated with a sugar company.
Lack of imports and competition is not about strengthening competitiveness
It is about increasing the risks of accelerated collapse of the sugar beet industry in Moldova.
In order to “embellish” the weak indicators of sugar production by January 1, 2026 – about 25 thousand tons – local sugar producers urgently resorted to imports. In total, in 2026, they imported into the country about 10 thousand tons – on preferential terms, without paying import duties, from the EU and Ukraine. According to the already established practice, all preferential tariff quotas-2026 for sugar imports were selected in the first working hours of the new year.
In other words, those who insist on closing the domestic sugar market from imports are themselves the largest importers.
Now this single “corporate player” of the Moldovan sugar market is trying to completely block the possibility of “foreign imports” for others. What for the sake of what? To exclude any competition and to be able to pull up prices to the level of their own costs – about 900 euros per ton.
On the Moldovan market, where sugar already costs about 720 euro/t, against 500 euro/t in Romania and 380 euro/t in Ukraine, the idea of a complete closure of access to imports can no longer be called protection. It is a crude attempt to establish control over the market.
It is carried out through a draft government decree on the regulation of sugar imports. This cabinet decision excludes sugar imports from unilateral and bilateral free trade regimes, including DCFTA, CEFTA, EFTA, etc. It introduces a bureaucratized mechanism that cannot be justified by either the international or national legal framework, but which is proposed to be handed over to an affiliated non-governmental entity controlled by a single sugar producer.
All these elements are aimed at concentrating the market supply of the commodity in the hands of one sugar producer and redirecting its commodity flow exclusively to the local market, without real export/import prospects. This is no longer an economic policy – it is a raider seizure on a sectoral scale.
Components of “success”
A team of lobbyists. Although international and national practices require serious market analysis, followed by public consultations and other attributes of transparent decision-making, these norms have been ignored.
On the one hand, we have an industry union in a hard-to-ignore relationship with an international business association (both entities share the same office and staff with one of the sugar companies).
On the other hand, these efforts are actively supported by the Secretary of State and the representative of the Prime Minister’s Economic Council. This cooperation ensures that government initiatives designed to serve the economic interests of a single sugar producer are fast-tracked. In doing so, many national and international legal procedures are often circumvented and manipulative or erroneous information about the situation in the industry is used.
Even worse, the promotion of these initiatives deliberately avoids the verification of information and the assessment of market, competition and competitiveness impacts.
The position and dialog with civil society and the business environment are ignored: the canning industry, bakery, sweets, ice cream production – these are dozens of processors that fill the brand “Made in Moldova” with real content.
The timing is right. At a time when the government is facing an energy crisis, this project is being promoted quietly, during the holidays, with shortened deadlines for public consultations. The calculation is simple and cynical: not to leave sufficient time for stakeholders to check, react and study the document in detail. This is not a procedural oversight – it is a method.
Lack of expertise. The Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry (MAIA) continues to operate, including publicly, with data on sown areas and other estimates of the industry, which have nothing to do with reality. Who supplies the central and local authorities with this erroneous information? There is a growing impression that the information does not come from a solid institutional mechanism, but is “fed” from the same lobbying office that promotes the project itself.
A simple check of primary information, dialog with business associations and industrial consumers of sugar would clarify the situation on the country’s market. In particular, the dynamics of sown areas could be verified by analyzing imports of sugar beet seeds.
There are simple questions for the Ministry of Economy (MDED): when will the final analysis of the domestic sugar market in 2025, the causal relationship between imports and the situation in the industry be presented, and what were the economic, financial and market consequences of protecting the sugar market from imports?
Such an analysis, based on actual and real statistical data, would make it possible to identify the real problems of the sector and propose solutions for investors and owners of sugar companies in Moldova, as well as for the authorities, without violating the provisions of international agreements to which Moldova is a party. The absence of such analyses means that this whole process is no longer an economic policy. It is an administrative improvisation put at the service of private interest.
Sabotage and manipulation in the “European style”. At the moment when dissatisfaction on the part of associations, producers and independent operators began to grow, a new maneuver was launched: “whitewashing” the initiative through a joint letter of support signed on behalf of the three largest international business associations in Moldova. But the attempt failed.
It is worth noting that such collective actions to promote initiatives by the executive directors of these associations should be done correctly and in accordance with the legal framework, avoiding hidden interests of individual members or companies.
The practices of the “captured state” times, well known to some, are not disappearing, but only acquiring other forms and methods of promotion – through corporate language, elegant letterheads and false appeals to the “interests of the industry”. Narrow lobbyism, devoid of real arguments, compromises the future of many businesses in the country and is a direct blow to the reputation and credibility of Moldova’s progressive business environment.
The project should be withdrawn. At this stage, the project is “on hold”. However, its flaws are too serious to be further cosmetically corrected.
The lack of real impact analysis, violation of competition rules, disregard of international obligations, deviation from the principle of non-retroactivity of the law and clear opposition from large, medium and small food producers form a clear conclusion: this project should be withdrawn. There is not a single serious reason for its adoption, there is only pressure, interest and lobbyism.
What should be done instead?
Obviously, the sector needs a set of balanced measures that would harmonize the interests of sugar producers with those of other sugar consuming industries and traders dependent on access to raw materials on competitive terms, at fair prices and on market principles.
Producers avoid recognizing that the current business model is flawed: with excessive administrative costs and failed management focused primarily on fighting competitors and imports.
Previously, sugar beet companies contracted 15-19 thousand hectares for sugar beet, they were profitable, competitive, covered the internal market demand for sugar, and periodically exported it within the preferential quotas of the EU, CIS, and CEFTA.
Despite all institutional efforts, in 2026 the sugar industry promises to sow only 6.5 thousand hectares of sugar beets, which is not enough to supply even one single sugar factory with raw materials.
To comply with European trends, the local industry needs an average yield of 50-60 tons per hectare. Meanwhile, the average yield in Moldova for the last four years is about 35 tons/ha. There is a need for efficient management, ensuring the processing of raw materials without downtime of factories, as well as technical and administrative staff of no more than 140-160 professionals. The current administrative and commercial costs of the industry are comparable to those in its heyday, when it produced 80-100 thousand tons of sugar.
This is no longer a market problem. It is a problem of internal inefficiency of the industry, which they are trying to shift onto the shoulders of all industrial consumers and the population.
National economic sectors deserve to be supported with the full range of economic, trade, tax and subsidy policy instruments, subject to legal procedures and international norms, based on real data and in-depth market analysis. Dialogue should be ensured by the MDED and MAIA authorities, with the participation of representatives of the sugar industry, business associations, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, civil society and food industry companies.
Any trade protection measure should be justified and based on an impact study and evidence of damage caused to the local industry by imports from abroad. In addition, the authorities should understand the impact on the country’s image and the possibility of similar measures for exported Moldovan products.
Furthermore, the authorities should also understand the spillover effects on the trade chain: blocking free trade agreements and artificially restricting access to sugar will inevitably affect retailers, cash and carry and traditional trade, reducing the supply available to the final consumer.
The topic is too important and too sensitive to be treated superficially and urgently, without proper market and impact analysis, when the real objective is to promote and establish a monopoly.
If the government really wants to protect a strategic industry, it must start by protecting competition, transparency and common sense. Otherwise, we will witness a policy of supporting an inefficient industry that dreams of operating solely under a monopoly, “under the umbrella” of the government. Such vicious practices are not in the spirit of European best practices and should be a thing of the past.
Adrian Lipkan,
administrator of Sugar Bridge
