IMF has finished evaluating the program of the Republic of Moldova, supported by the extended lending mechanism and the Extended Financing Mechanism. 

"The program's terms are being realized, with the authorities' plenary involvement. The economic situation continues to improve, but at the same time, some risks were registered.

The economy was greatly strengthened in 2017, mostly due to the domestic demand and the favorable external environment.

The policies promoted by the authorities are based on cleaning the financial sector, ensure a sustainable fiscal policy, which encourages the economic growth and ensure transparency in the energy sector."

On 29 June 2018, the Board of Executive Directors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have finished the third evaluation of the agreed program with the Republic of Moldova, supported throughout the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and the Enhanced Financing Facility (EFF) and approved changes to the performance criteria.

Following this program evaluation, 24 million SDRs (special drawing rights) are available (about 33.8 million USD). The ECF / EFF program, with a total worth of 129.4 million special drawing rights (about 178.7 million USD or 75% of the Republic of Moldova's shares at IMF) was approved on 7 November 2016 (details can be found in the press release Press No 16/491).

After the Board of Executive Directors held talks, Mister Tao Zhang, Deputy Director of the IMF and Chairman-in-Office of the meeting, made the following declaration:

The commitment of the Republic of Moldova to implementing the program supported by the IMF has contributed to improving the economic situation. It is essential for policies and reforms to continue being promoted, to completely restore the financial sector, to ensure transparency and stability in the energy sector and to maintain the macroeconomic stability.

At the same time, it is necessary for effort to be made to continue improving the quality of governance.

A significant progress is made regarding cleaning the financial sector, especially by ensuring transparency of shareholders of systemically important banks and modifying the existing framework, to permanently eliminate shareholder that do not meet the professionalism and honorability requirements.

Continuous effort is necessary to finalize the process of identifying beneficiaries and eliminate shareholders that lack the required professionalism and honesty, improve risk management and solve matters tied to affiliate persons, including through credible plans, well-established deadlines, aiming to eliminate the issue of excessive exposures.

Additionally, it is necessary to facilitate the orderly exit from the temporary administration regime of the second largest bank in Moldova. Furthermore, macrofinancial institutions must be forbidden from accepting sources that essentially deposits and it is necessary for the insurance sector to have quality governance, transparency of the owners and this sector being financially crucial.

Regarding fiscal policy, the budget rectification for 2018 foresees the financial coverage of infrastructure and social assistance priorities and is in line with the objectives of the program.

Priority expenditures must be protected, the labor remuneration fund reported on GDP needs to be kept under control, while unplanned expenditures must be avoided during the pre-election period. The budget for 2019 and the medium-term budgetary framework must remain in line with the commitments made within the program.

The fiscal policy decisions must contribute to revenue collection in line with agreed upon plans and maintain the advancing nature of the tax system, while also avoiding any regression in the budget associated with the unification of the salary scale applied in the budgetary system. More efforts must be made to facilitate the removal of arrears.

The promoted monetary policy must be based on maintaining the price stability, taking into consideration a flexible exchange rate regime.

The monetary police must remain based on the economic data, while the authorities' operational capacity must be further improved. Foreign Exchange Market interventions must be limited only to excessive volatility.

While recovering the fraudulent assets is delayed, a high-ranking recovery strategy was published, and it must be implemented with determination.

The prevention and combating money laundering framework, as well as terrorist financing and appropriate regulations must be made in accordance to international standards.

In the energy sector, it is important to ensure viability, transparency and predictability, by establishing electricity frees in accordance with the newly-approved methodology and the program's commitments" the IMF statement shows.