News about International trade
The National Agency for Food Safety (ANSA) is relaxing controls over shipments of packaged milk from Ukraine to Moldova. Only Ukrainian milk imported in bulk remains under continuous (consolidated) control.
The European Union is canceling duty-free imports of goods worth up to 150 euros, which will directly affect parcels from Asian marketplaces including AliExpress, Temu and Shein, according to Logos Press.
Turkey has been making intensive efforts through its peace-oriented diplomacy “to achieve just and equitable solutions to problems through dialogue and negotiations” against the backdrop of the war in Iran.
E-commerce giant Amazon has closed its fulfillment center in Abu Dhabi, suspended deliveries across the region and instructed its employees in Saudi Arabia and Jordan to stay home.
Romania’s Banca Transilvania, which controls in Moldova JSCB Victoriabank and microfinance company Microinvest, ended 2025 with a consolidated net profit of 4.66 billion Romanian lei (18.38 billion Moldovan lei), above the market level, helped by the best performance of the last quarter in recent years and the accelerated expansion of lending activities.
Meat market operators link the recovery of production in the Moldovan pork sector to the allocation of state compensation to pork enterprises for the fact of liquidation of pigs on the two largest pig farms in the country last year.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is preparing a draft decree on introducing a licensing regime for imports of grapes, wine and alcohol from Moldova. This decision protects Ukraine’s economic interests and is a response to the Moldovan side’s restriction of exports of Ukrainian poultry meat, by-products and products containing poultry meat.
Export of honey from Ukraine in 2025 compared to the figure for 2024 (about 86 thousand tons) decreased by 41.4% – to 50.3 thousand tons. In financial terms, the export of this product from Ukraine in 2025 decreased by 24.9% to $125.4 mln.
In the short term, the growth of exchange quotations for wheat will continue. Grain prices are always tightly linked to oil prices and the US dollar exchange rate. Attacks on Iran have already been converted by rising oil prices and strengthening of the dollar. In this nexus, a rise in the prices of fast traded agri-food commodities is inevitable.
Romanian Energy Minister Bogdan Ivan claims that the Vertical Corridor could bring Romanian companies additional profits of up to 250 million euros a year.
In issuing warnings about the “disappearance of Western civilization,” U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance often invoke the United Kingdom, and especially London, to substantiate their views.
As a result of the war between Russia and Ukraine, more than 600,000 hectares of land owned by agri-food companies from the TOP-100 ranking are in territories controlled by the Russian army. In general, the land bank of companies from the TOP-100 is about 5.3 million hectares: this is a quarter of all sown areas of Ukraine, which are estimated at 23 million hectares. Ukrlandfarming, Agroton and HarvEast suffered the biggest losses.
The global energy sector is bracing for the most significant disruption in four years. As the conflict in Iran escalates, the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important transportation artery for liquefied natural gas (LNG), has come to a near standstill. Iran has characterized the waterway as “virtually closed,” effectively blocking 20 percent of the world’s LNG supply.
According to the forecast of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the increase in food prices in Moldova in 2026 will amount to 4.9%, which puts our country on the 43rd place in the world on this indicator among 160 states.
The military campaign of Israel and the United States against Iran, which began on February 28, increases the risks of supply disruptions and contributes to the growth of oil prices. In this regard, OPEC+ will consider tomorrow, March 1, a larger increase in supply from as early as the second quarter of 2026, Bloomberg reported citing a delegate.
Romania’s pork industry is experiencing the most acute crisis in the last decade. For five months, many Romanian pork producers have been operating outside the profitability zone. The country’s market is under intense pressure from heavy pork shipments from the European Union, which is shedding its reserves due to the threat of a widespread African swine fever epidemic in Spain. The short-term outlook for the industry is extremely unfavorable.
In the second half of February on the Moldovan walnut market, demand and prices for large quantities of walnuts in shell increased sharply. The result was a series of transactions for hundreds of tons of this product.
In a tense global order, the struggle for control of energy and mineral resources is increasingly seen as a matter of national security. From Venezuela and Greenland to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Ukraine, competition for strategic resources shapes global power dynamics, alliances and conflicts.
UPDATED. On the morning of February 28, Israel announced a “pre-emptive strike” against Iran. Later, a number of U.S. media outlets said that the U.S. armed forces were also launching dozens of strikes against Iran with U.S. attack aircraft based at bases across the Middle East and from aircraft carriers.
The analytical company Bernstein has published a new review of the world’s largest hotel chains and named the stocks that have the highest growth potential. Estimates are based on forecasts to 2027 and financial indicators of the companies.
