Adrian Lupuszor
If the National Bank’s scenario of 2% economic growth is realized, GDP in 2025 will be only 98.1% of the level recorded in 2021. The recovery will be driven by consumption and domestic investment, supported by a 5% growth in real wages and the accumulation of fixed capital from private sources.
At the same time, export dynamics, according to NBM forecasts, will be supported by the recovery of the agricultural sector. Agricultural production will increase by 14.0%, after decreasing by 14.6% in 2024. The outstripping growth rates of exports have already led to a slowdown in the growth of the foreign trade deficit. And experts are increasingly inclined to believe that the agricultural sector has been and remains both a brake (in bad years) and a driver of the economy, depending on the circumstances.
According to economist Vladimir Golovatiuc, although GDP growth in the first 9 months of 2025 did not generally compensate for its decline in the corresponding periods of previous years (GDP in January-September 2025 is 2% lower than GDP in the first 9 months of 2022), the growth of the foreign trade deficit is slowing down.
“In January-October, the foreign trade deficit totaled $5.8 billion vs. $4.5 billion a year earlier, an increase of 30.4%. But this growth is slowing down, compared to 41% at the end of the first quarter and 38.7% in the first nine months. The reason for the noted slowdown was the outpacing growth of exports in July-October 2025 over imports. And this cannot be considered a seasonal phenomenon, as the opposite trend was observed last year,” says Vladimir Golovatiuc.
At the same time, as follows from the expert’s opinion, the problem of the trade deficit lies not in the trade deficit itself, but in the insufficient volume of exports, which overcame the downward trend.
“Exports in October 2025 grew by 23.7%, and it can be argued that for the first time after Q1 2023, the decline in the sector has been overcome – in the first 10 months of 2025, exports grew by 2.9%. In July-October, Moldovan exports increased by 22-24% monthly compared to last year,” the expert said.
In general, exports grew by $264.9 million (by 23%) during the 4 months. At the same time, the export of agricultural products in fresh and processed form increased by $2139 million (by 50%). So, says Vladimir Golovatiuc, more than 80% of the export growth in July-October 2025 is agricultural products. – is agricultural products. In Q3 2025, gross agricultural output grew by 14.7% (including in crop production – by 22.5%), and gross value added increased by 15%.
“This once again demonstrates the role that agriculture plays in the country’s economy, being a strategic priority sector of the economy along the entire value-added chain in the economy, and the attitude to it should be appropriate,” the expert believes.
But this is not enough! Despite the successes of the current agricultural year, the dependence of the economy on the situation in the agricultural sector should be revised in the direction of strengthening the share of processing of agricultural raw materials and creating conditions for the export of food with high added value created in the country. The current model of economic growth has exhausted its potential and needs to be rethought, says Adrian Lupuszor, Executive Director of Expert Grup.
In 2024 and early 2025, the expected recovery turned into a recession. In 2024, the most pessimistic scenarios regarding agricultural production materialized. This, in turn, affected the dynamics of merchandise exports (-13%). Even if we exclude the agricultural sector, which suffered last year from drought, the economy would have grown by only 1.4%, which is much lower than expected, – analyze the dynamics in Expert Grup.
The current year cannot be called a breakthrough year either, says the organization’s report. Moreover, during the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2024 and the 1st quarter of 2025, GDP actually declined, officially marking the entry into a technical recession.
The only really positive changes were an increase in household consumption, as well as an increase in investment activity. However, this was not enough, and the increase in consumption against a background of stagnation in the industrial sector led to an increase in imports and a further deterioration in the trade balance: in fact, for every euro of exported goods there are three euros of imported goods (in services the situation is the opposite: exports are twice as high as imports).
“The fundamental reason for all this is the persistence of a cost-based economic model (mainly low labor costs). This, in turn, has led to the persistence of a low value-added economy with a low level of technological development. Accordingly, government programs and policies should actively give priority to attracting investment in economic activities that generate higher added value: processing of local raw materials, creation and promotion of local brands, automation and mechanization of production processes in all sectors of the national economy,” says the Executive Director of Expert Grup.
However, there are no simple and quick solutions to achieve this goal. In conditions of high budget and current account deficit, macroeconomic mechanisms (e.g. devaluation of the national currency or other monetary stimulus measures, etc.) can only be used to maintain macro-financial stability.
Otherwise, it is up to policy makers. But the decision-making process remains poorly coordinated, consultations with the expert community are not fully utilized, and the political imbalance in the parliament, where the majority initiatives prevail and the opposition has little influence, only increases the chaotic nature of the decisions taken.
“In this context, minimizing political influence and hidden interests in the management of relevant allocation programs, eliminating conflicts of interest and increasing transparency of spending based on impact criteria become crucial conditions for the transition to sustainable economic growth,” said Adrian Lupushor.
