OREANDA-NEWS. April 01, 2011. It was said during the work meeting held at the Ministry of Economy to discuss the tax collection issue. Representatives of the ministries, companies and environment protection associations participated at the meeting. It was said that Moldova’s major trade partners consider collection of this ecological tax from suppliers of production in plastic packages or tetra pack as discriminative, because local producers don’t pay it.

This situation blocks Moldova’s dialogue with the European Commission on the Agreement on Association and Agreement on Comprehensive and Deepened Free Trade Area, and provokes Moldova’s major trade partners in the CIS to take similar measures in respect of the Moldovan wine-, fruit- and vegetable and other production. It was said that the preliminary consultations over the issue of collection of this ecological tax between Moldova and Ukraine had taken place on March 18 in Geneva at Kiev’s initiative within the WTO.

The consultations and negotiations with participation of the European Union and other WTO member states will be organized soon. Moldova’s Deputy Minister of Economy Octavian Calmic said that by keeping the ecological tax for import of production in plastic packages of tetra pack, our country risks to face counteraction of its foreign partners, such as Ukraine, Russia and the EU, which directly influence development of Moldovan economy.

As a result the Ministry proposed a number of alternatives to enhance competitiveness and quality of Moldovan production, to cut process costs and administrative pressure, along with the development projects and financial resources for modernizing production processes. The Ministry of Economy reported the beginning of revision of the import duties, practical instruments for cutting cost of raw materials and auxiliary materials used in production, and the increase to the maximum in the import taxes on imported finished production, similar to the one produced in Moldova.