Romanian gov't open to partnership with Chisinau gov't to help Moldova achieve EU pre-accession objectives

The Romanian Government is open to a partnership with the Moldovan Executive to help the Republic of Moldova authorities achieve the pre-accession objectives to the European Union, especially on policies for entrepreneurs and management of EU non-reimbursable money, on Tuesday said Roxana Minzatu, coordinator of the Department for Integrated Evaluation and Monitoring of Program,es financed from Public and European Funds subordinated to the prime minister.Roxana Minzatu held, at the gov't venue, a press conference alongside the secretaries of state in the Ministry of Economic Development and Digitization of the gov't of the Republic of Moldova, Veronica Arpintin and Viorel Garaz, who are on a working visit to Bucharest.State secretary Viorica Arpintin underlined the importance of the visit to Bucharest from the perspective of the steps that the Chisinau authorities must follow in order to contribute to the efficiency of the pre-accession process to the European Union."We are grateful for the openness and exchange of practices to colleagues from the Ministry of Development, Public Works and Administration, the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, the Competition Council, the Ministry of Investments and European Projects, as well as those from the Ministry of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Tourism and the Chancellery of the Prime Minister of the Government of Romania," Arpintin said.She highlighted that Romania was and is an active supporter of Moldova's European integration and promoted its interests very actively, not only in positive moments, but also in difficult moments it has gone through, including the recent setbacks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.In his turn, state secretary Viorel Garaz pointed out that Romania is Moldova's main trading partner and largest investor, with over 2,000 companies involved in the Moldovan economy, sending a message to other potential Romanian entrepreneurs interested in developing businesses on both banks of the Prut River."The Republic of Moldova is a very favorable investment platform, taking into account the latest changes in the legislation of the Republic of Moldova that have been made. Here we are talking about the modernization of the Customs Code, about the existing investment platforms that we are modernizing," Garaz said.According to him, at present, companies in Moldova are not at the level of those in Romania and other European Union states."We have far too many conflicts lately that disrupt our processes or mechanisms of economic development. We started it with the pandemic, an energy crisis followed, after which the war in Ukraine began, which, literally, stopped us on this whole path of economic development. We are talking about kilometer queues in customs that make it very difficult for Moldova's exports. (...) We are aware of the fact that, today, a company from the Republic of Moldova is much more disadvantaged compared to a similar economic operator, even from Romania. Therefore, we make maximum efforts so that initiating or operating a business in Moldova is easy, to be as profitable as possible," Viorel Garaz said.