OREANDA-NEWS. July 14, 2011. The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Valerii Lazar, commenting upon the foreign trade statistics for 5 months of this year, said the growth of the indicators is, among others, the result of the Ministry of Economy’s policy of eliminating barriers in import/export activities. Valerii Lazar said increase in imports of equipment and raw materials confirms wide implementation of production-oriented investment projects in Moldova, the Ministry of Economy’s press service reports.

According to him, it is also proved by the growth of the inflow of direct foreign investments, investments into the fixed capital and increase in the reinvested profit. The Minister of Economy believes favorable state of foreign markets that formed high demand for Moldovan production, as well as the annual increase in quotas for Moldovan production supplied to the EU is another factor contributing to the export growth. Valerii Lazar also noted efforts of enterprises-exporters that started investing more in promotion, increasing competitiveness in foreign markets, receiving assistance from the state and grants for introducing quality management systems, co-financing of participation in exhibitions abroad and others.

The Minister of Economy stressed continuation of the tendency towards reduction of the range of imported products that may be replaced by local products. According to him, the matter concerns 5-6% of import that still can be replaced by local products, the rest is made up by energy resources, production equipment, technologies or raw materials for manufacturing Moldovan products. At the same time, Valerii Lazar believes there are still many administrative barriers for entrepreneurship and foreign trade. He said the Ministry of Economy had elaborated an analytical study about non-tariff barriers in trade and would be implementing the Plan of Actions to eliminate these obstacles.

According to the National Statistics Office, Moldovan exports increased by more than 63% for five months of 2011 in comparison with the same period last year – to USD 828 million. Imports to Moldova in this period increased by 44.7 percent – to USD 1.9 billion. Moldova’s foreign trade turnover in January-May 2011 totaled USD 2.8 billion, up 49.69 percent against the same period last year.