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Category: Point of View
“The prospects for the development of the Moldovan economy remain uncertain due to the presence of many constraints and the lack of multilateral and well-thought-out plans for progressive development.” This was stated by Marin Ciobanu, chairman of the Association of Employers of the Manufacturing Industry (APIP), at a meeting of the Economic Press Club on September 23.
During the period of pre-election battles, there are many initiatives and proposals on the topic “How we should settle Moldova”. Among them there are outright populist, initially unrealistic and unrealizable. But there are also quite a number of well-considered solutions to the most pressing problems for the country. Which should be solved not because some political force wants it, but because of the obviousness and necessity for the country. And any political force that seeks to come to power not for the sake of personal or party interests, but for the sake of the country’s development should pay attention to them. And not just to pay attention, but to make the implementation of such initiatives one of the priorities of their activities in the administration of the state. Because it is necessary for people and the country.
The minimum consumer basket (MCB) is not just a set of products and services. It is an economic “mirror” that should reflect the real standard of living and the minimum human needs for survival. In Moldova, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the MPC is used to determine the subsistence minimum. However, its composition, methodology of calculation and, as a consequence, its final value raise more and more questions. Is the MPC in Moldova an adequate reflection of reality or is it an outdated anachronism that prevents adequate assessment of poverty and well-being?
Moldova’s economy is facing a number of existential problems that limit its opportunities for development and deep modernization. It is all the more important to identify these problems, prioritize them and determine their impact on the development potential. As well as to propose effective and realistic measures to address them. Otherwise, they may become irreversible, when the situation can become virtually impossible to rectify or cost much more than it can be done with timely adoption of the necessary decisions.
The land use regime in Moldova is not functioning properly, with costs that limit the economic potential and revenues of local budgets. An external compliance audit of the management and assessment of land owned by administrative-territorial units assessed the process of delineation of state land assets as inefficient.
The area of financial control tops the ranking of the country’s readiness for the EU accession process, while public procurement and freedom of expression continue to face significant challenges.
The progress of preparations for European integration was assessed at 3 points. The evaluation of the second independent report on monitoring Moldova’s implementation of the European Commission’s recommendations was carried out by the independent analytical center Expert-Grup. The pain points are everywhere, we present some of them.
Moldova has been in a state of protracted reforms without a clear perspective for decades. The incomplete transition from the Soviet past, constant political crisis, growing social inequality, high level of corruption and lack of strategic thinking create an unstable institutional environment. Systemic contradictions have engulfed all spheres of life and intensify institutional fragmentation and polarization of society. But most importantly, they impede sustainable development. And here in Moldova, for the first time, they started talking about a new, real and working vision of economic revival. At its center is the quality of public administration as a basis from which all other directions of modernization are naturally built: from the economy to the social sphere.
Last week marked 33 years since the end of the war on the Dniester: On July 29, 1992, the Joint Peacekeeping Forces were established and the peacekeeping operation in the Security Zone began. An unrecognized territory – the Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic – appeared.
With heightened uncertainty, policymakers in emerging economies will be forced to make difficult trade-offs between high debt, slowing growth and new spending needs, the IMF said in a blog on economic policy adjustment.
Moldova’s specialists will be able to develop more accurate forecasts of the energy sector’s development and its impact on climate change. This was reported by the Ministry of Energy, noting that the agency’s energy forecasting specialists received practical training at a July 29-30 workshop on a new energy system modeling tool developed with OSCE support.
Moldova’s new debts overlapped the old ones. And the external public debt increased by a third during the year. And the total debt of the state, thanks to this, has significantly gained weight. The weakening of the national currency, despite the NBM’s efforts to support the exchange rate, certainly made its contribution. But against the background of world financial events, it does not look like such a respectable factor for new borrowings burdening the economy. Although without them we are nowhere.
The AIS MIAD (Information System for Management and Issuance of Authorization Documents), once introduced with great pomp, still does not pay back the resources invested in it. Such conclusions were reached by the Court of Accounts of the Republic of Moldova, having assessed the implementation of recommendations by the agencies.
This week, the first portion of the census campaign results – the number of the population permanently residing in the country and by regions – was announced. The second portion – about demographic features – was saved for the end of August. We will learn information about residential buildings only by the end of the year. The question about the time of disclosure of ethnic composition, nationality and mother tongue was not even raised by those present at the official meeting at the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)….
Against the background of the general well-being of the financial sector, the decline in profitability of the insurance business in the first quarter of the year looks, at least, strange. The National Bank does not name the real reasons for the deterioration, but fixes the decrease in total profit, losses of insurance companies and other obvious symptoms of temporary malaise.
As a rule, the fiscal and customs policy for the next year is approved/adopted around the middle of the current year or, in some cases, at the end of July, when the Parliament officially concludes its spring-summer session. This is done both to enable the Government in general and the Ministry of Finance in particular to develop the state budget for the next year on the basis of the new fiscal and customs policy, and to enable the business environment to prepare in advance for the new rules that are about to come into force.
When the Prima Casa program was launched in Moldova in 2018, it was positioned as a large-scale social initiative – a chance for young families to find their own housing with state support. Today, several years later, Prima Casă has turned into a source of uncertainty, debt traps and social tensions. Instead of a sustainable solution to the housing problem, we got an overheated market, disguised incentives for the banking sector and the state’s withdrawal from its own obligations.
Moldova’s gross external debt increased in the first quarter of 2025 by 3% (+$303.82 million) and amounted to $10,517.15 million, which is 57.4% of GDP (+1.3 p.p. since the beginning of the year). The rate of external debt accumulation is still inferior to the rate of domestic borrowings – they are at least twice as fast, although they still account for about 40% of the total government debt.
Now everyone is already preparing for the parliamentary elections scheduled for September 28. In this context, any serious discussion about the country’s development paths, the state of Moldova’s economy, the necessary radical and comprehensive measures to radically break the established state system, which is already completely rotten and shows its insolvency, are perceived exclusively through the prism of the political context and the upcoming elections.
Foreign trade statistics indicates a significant decline in export revenues. And the structure of demand for foreign currency on the part of business demonstrates an increasingly pronounced gap with import dynamics, analysts of the National Bank record. According to their estimates, the current account deficit in the first quarter shows more than twofold increase on paper. In life, it has to be “covered” with something.
