Expert-Grup

8 Years of DCFTA Implementation: Opportunities Seized and Missed, and How to Maximise Its Benefits

Integrare europeanăTuesday, 14 March 20236371 views
Project:
Strengthening the Monitoring Capacity of Civil Society in Moldova

Automatically translated summary. The full text is available in Romanian.

An Independent Think Tank “Expert-Grup” commentary, produced with NED support, reviews eight years of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area between the EU and Moldova, established in 2014 and fully in force since 2016. It assesses its effects on Moldovan exports and the opportunities still unused.

Exports to the EU kept growing in 2022, when the EU took 59% of Moldova’s goods exports (an estimated 67% excluding re-exports). The DCFTA helped narrow the trade deficit, but it stayed high at 29% of GDP in 2021. Its potential remains underused: the real GDP effect was 0.49%, against the 3.2% short-term and 5.4% long-term gains expected, while the effect on exports was 4.6% in 2019, against the 14.8% and 16.2% anticipated.

The weak results reflect successive crises, including the banking crisis, political instability, the Covid-19 pandemic and regional insecurity, as well as remaining barriers. Vulnerabilities persist: Romania took 29% of exports in 2022, over 80% of EU-bound exports go to five countries, and value added is low. Past diversification was mostly forced by external shocks, and concentration rose again in 2022.

View the original in Romanian