Bilateral goods transports between Moldova, Turkey to be liberalized

Chisinau, 17 October /MOLDPRES/ - The bilateral and transit goods transports between Moldova and Turkey will be carried out without transport authorizations. The liberalization of transports is seen by the amendments which are to be made to the agreement between the two countries, signed on 3 May 1994. The government today approved the signing of the agreement on the amendment of the document signed 24 years ago.   

The Economics and Infrastructure Ministry said that the Moldovan transport operators ‘annually face a deficit of Turkish authorizations for the carriage of goods,” taking into account the fact that the substantial flow of goods “is directed to the Eastern Europe.” As a result, Moldovan companies have no possibility to fulfill their commitments of goods’ transportation, under the contracts signed.  

The liberalization of transports in the bilateral and transit regimes will lead to the enhancement of the competitiveness of road transport operators regionally. Also, this will allow reducing the administrative burden, including diminishing the operational costs, which will simplify the transport operations.

In mid-May 2018, the Moldovan-Turkish joint commission for international road transport agreed on increasing the number of authorizations for the Moldovan goods carriers and starting procedures on amending the inter-governmental agreement. The talks on the draft agreement proposed by the Moldovan side took place in Chisinau on 25-26 September 2018.   

The bilateral ties in the international road transport of passengers and goods between Moldova and Turkey are established based on the inter-governmental agreement signed in Chisinau on 3 May 1994. The accord sees that the transport of goods in bilateral, transit regimes and to/from third countries is carried out on the basis of authorizations.  

Data by the National Statistics Bureau (BNS) shows that Moldova’s exports to Turkey increased 1.7-fold in 2017, up to 104 million dollars and the imports grew by about 12 per cent up to 303 million dollars. According to the official statistics for the first eight months of this year, Turkey ranks seventh among the countries from which Moldova imports goods, with a figure of 213.5 million dollars, up by over ten per cent against the same period of 2017. In January-August 2018, Moldova exported goods worth 57 million dollars to the Turkish market.  

(Reporter V. Bercu, editor A. Raileanu)