OREANDA-NEWS. May 27, 2013. Prime Minister-designate Iurie Leanca met the World Bank Country Director for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, Qimiao Fan, the government’s communication and media relations department has reported.

The World Bank's Country Manager for Moldova, Seck Abdoulaye, also attended the meeting. The officials discussed the World Bank’s activity in Moldova and the bilateral cooperation prospects.

Leanca praised the World Bank’s activity carried out in Moldova, stressing that the projects implemented with the World Bank’s support targeted many priority areas for Moldova’s social and economic development. Leanca underlined the importance of ensuring the continuity of their implementation, in spite of political instability.

„The acting government takes all measures so that the state institutions focus on achieving the set goals. The joint projects, implemented with the WB’s support, including the education reform, the infrastructure modernisation, the healthcare system’s development are significantly important for the population and we will make efforts to implement them so that people could benefit from the results,” Leanca said.

In this context, the officials agreed to sign a financial assistance agreement in the nearest period. The agreement’s total amount is of 10 million dollars and is meant for agriculture.

Leanca stressed that all formalities in this respect had been cleared up. Thus, the above-mentioned agreement will be signed very soon, allowing farmers to get compensations for the losses inflicted due to the 2012 drought.

The officials also approached the World Bank-Moldova cooperation prospect for the next period. Qimiao Fan specified that the current partnership strategy with Moldova was for the period 2009-2013. Fan underscored that the WB opted for the elaboration of a new partnership strategy for 2014-2017.

„The Wordl Bank will continue to provide assistance to Moldova’s development and the future cooperation strategy will focus on three key directions: 1) supporting economic reforms, improving the investment environment, increasing economic competitiveness and improving the financial sector; 2) promoting social projects, consolidating human capacities and those related to education and health care systems; 3) providing assistance in the climate risks management, which also imply assistance for the agro-food sector development.

Fan also confirmed the WB’s willingness to further back the public administration reform, as well as the projects meant to improve public finance management, plus many other aspects important for Moldova’s sustainable development.