Press Release

Chisinau, Mai 20 ( INFOTAG ). The International Monetary Fund (IMF) welcomes the Moldovan authorities' plan to expand the coverage of the targeted aid to 65% of families, having right to social assistance, in 2012.

In an interview with your Infotag correspondent, IMF Resident Representative in Moldova, Tokhir Mirzoev, said that further expansion of expenditures on social needs is mostly connected to the Government' possibility to expand the population inclusion in the targeted social assistance system on the grounds of assessing real level of family revenues.

"The Budget 2011 and other accompanying regulatory acts will allow Moldova continue efforts towards achieving goals of the tax-and-fiscal strategy under the IMF-supported program", he said.

Head of the IMF representative office attached an attention to the Budget-provided deficit decreasing to 1.9% of GDP, while ensuring continued reduction of the share of current expenditure in GDP and making space for increased investment and targeted social assistance to reduce poverty.

"The IMF and authorities are partners having a common goal - to restore macroeconomic stability, including fiscal sustainability in Moldova and support economic growth", Mirzoev said.

He said that main budget expenditures items for Moldova's development are investment in infrastructure and targeted social assistance for poverty reduction.

"The amounts of these expenditures considerably increased in the past two years. The 2010 experience, when the capital expenditure budget was not drawn in full, suggests that the infrastructure investment is limited by the country's absorptive capacity, rather than financing", he said.

The IMF Resident Representative said that the situation shows the necessity of a faster implementation of reforms that aims to improve investment project and state purchase projecting efficiency.

MOLDOVAN ECONOMIC GROWTH MAY BE IMPEDED BY SURPLUS MONEY SUPPLY - TOKHIR MIRZOEV

Chisinau, Mai 23 ( INFOTAG ). The excessive money supply may impede the growth of Moldovan economy due to a high inflation rate and macroeconomic instability, IMF Resident Representative in Moldova, Tokhir Mirzoev, has said.

In an interview with your Infotag correspondent, he said that, owing to this, the National Bank of Moldova's (NBM) main task is to calibrate the monetary policy in order to find a necessary money amount to achieve the goal of low and stable inflation level.

"Since 2009, Moldova's monetary policy stance has been highly accommodative in an attempt to support the ailing economy. During this period, the reserve requirements were nearly halved and the policy interest rate remained negative in real terms. This led to a large surplus of liquidity in the banking system and helped maintain financial and macroeconomic stability during the crisis, while supporting the recovery", Tokhir Mirzoev said.

He said that, in actual conditions, when the economy develops and crediting grows quickly, the excess liquidity threatens to again increase the demand pressure.

"The pressure in the absence of adequate response from domestic supply could put at risk both domestic and external stability", the IMF representative said.

He said that, owing to this fact, the time has come for the National Bank to shift its focus from supporting the economic recovery to prevention of inflation risks. Its target for the end of 2012 is the inflation of 5 +/- 1.5 percentage points.

"There are limits to what the central bank can do if energy prices increase substantially from present levels. But at current global price projections, we are confident that a well-calibrated monetary policy should be able to keep inflation low, without stifling growth", Mirzoev said.

According to him, the seasonal growth in energy and foodstuff prices will lead to the inflation indicator increase in the first half of 2011.

"However, these effects are expected to wear out by summer, as was the case last year. Meanwhile, core inflation - inflation excluding food and energy -dropped below 3% in March which is good news. Based on this we believe the current forecast is clearly realistic with appropriate monetary policy", IMF representative Tokhir Mirzoev said.

REPAYMENT OF INVESTPRIVATBANK DEPOSITS WAS DIFFICULT, BUT NECESSARY MEASURE - TOKHIR MIRZOEV

Chisinau, Mai 25 ( INFOTAG ). Resident Representative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Moldova, Tokhir Mirzoev, has called the repayment of all InvestPrivatBank deposits (and not only the insured sums) in 2009 a difficult, but necessary measure.

In an interview with your Infotag correspondent, he said that it was a very important step in order to avoid spreading of deposit withdrawals in the banking system.

"But, a large burden was placed on Banca de Economii (BEM) in the process and it is impeding the bank's development. Therefore, we recommend that this burden be removed from it as soon as possible", Mirzoev said.

He said that profits gained at the InvestPrivatBank assets selling must be used to cover Banca de Economii expenses.

"It is quite possible that the InvestPrivatBank assets selling will not make up expenses and some net cost would remain to be covered from other sources", the IMF representative said.

As Infotag has already reported, to date, authorities consider various modalities of covering such net cost that presuppose, namely, issue by the Ministry of Finance of special state securities for BEM. It can not be ruled out that a part of means will be provided by banks owing to a special tax the state wants to introduce.