More than 450 million euros transferred to state budget after three conferences of Moldova Support Platform

Chisinau, 29 December /MOLDPRES/ - Moldova, during this year, has had to face a string of overlapped crises, as a result of the multidimensional effects of the war in Ukraine: on the one hand, the humanitarian crisis, triggered by the wave of refugees, which must be managed by the Moldovan authorities, on the other hand, an economic crisis, triggered by the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and boosted in chain by the energy crisis, major inflation pressures, loss of sales markets and chains from the region because of the war, additional budgetary expenses for attenuating the effects of the crises on the residents and the business environment, etc.       

Taking into account these conditions, in order to back the Moldovan government’s efforts to overcome the unprecedented crisis situations, concomitantly with the carrying out of the reforms needed for the state’s modernization and strengthening the resilience of its institutions, at an initiative by the development partners, the Moldova Support Platform ministerial conference was launched. During 2022, three meetings of the Platform were held – in Berlin in April, in Bucharest in July and in Paris in November, Finance ministry’s sources have reported.    

Thus, this year, Moldova has managed to mobilize external sources for direct budgetary support from the development partners with a value equivalent to 13.72 billion lei (about 671 million euros), which is by 8.64 billion lei (about 422.9 million euros) more than planned in the beginning of the budgetary year. The additional financial means for budgetary support for attenuating the crises were collected, in particular, from IMF – 55.1 million euros and 33.2 million dollars, World Bank – 101.3 million euros and 9.24 million dollars, European Commission– 75 million euros, French Development Agency – 75 million euros, Germany’s government – 40 million euros, Romania’s government – 10.49 million euros and government of Poland – 20 million euros.    

Also, about 199.7 million lei entered a special account opened by the Finance Ministry for the collection of financial donations meant for the humanitarian assistance for the management of the crisis of refugees from Ukraine. As much as 3.2 million dollars of this money was provided by the government of Switzerland, 3.66 million euros – by the cabinet of Sweden, 3.25 million euros – by the government of Lithuania, 0.1 million euros – by government of Slovakia and 0.1million euros – by the cabinet of Estonia.    

Additionally, the following entries of financial means for non-refundable budgetary support are scheduled till the end of this year: (I) U.S. government – 30 million dollars (II), government of Norway – 14 million dollars. These resources will be channeled through the Fiduciary Fund established by the World Bank.   

For the 2023 year, the authorities managed to mobilize of foreign financial assistance for budgetary support worth 16.87 billion lei (of which 25.6 per cent – non-refundable), of which about 160.5 million euros (about 3.3 billion lei) represent financial commitments announced at the Paris Conference (21 November 2022).   

At those three Moldova Support Platform ministerial conferences (Berlin, Bucharest, Paris), the development partners announced for Moldova financial and humanitarian commitments of a value equivalent to about 1.4 billion euros, which is to be allocated and turned to good account in the next years.     

It is worth mentioning that a good deal of the support announced within the Moldova Support Platform is not managed by the government, but by UN agencies and beneficiaries of the private sector of various investment projects and guaranteeing schemes. At the same time, some of the foreign creditors, such as the European Investment Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, World Bank, Council of Europe Development Bank, etc. expressed intention to provide support for infrastructure investment projects for the next years, which will contribute to the consolidation of Moldova’s resilience.