Expert-Grup

Between Covid and Drought: How the Moldovan Economy Navigates Troubled Waters

Protecția socialăFriday, 18 September 20206083 views

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

On 15 September, Moldova's National Bureau of Statistics published second-quarter 2020 growth data: GDP at current prices of MDL 44.6 billion and a real decline of 14%. The analysis examines the structure of GDP to measure the impact of the Covid crisis and to anticipate how the economy will evolve.

Moldova's performance is close to the EU average of -14.1%. The sectors hit hardest were those involving interaction and mobility, such as HoReCa (-66.2%) and passenger transport (over 50%), along with the informal economy. Private consumption, over three quarters of the economy, fell by 17%, and gross fixed capital formation by 15.6%, with machinery and equipment down 28.3%. Net exports cushioned the fall only because imports (-29.2%) and exports (-24.2%) both shrank.

GDP fell by 7.2% in the first half of 2020, and the outlook remains bleak. The official forecast of -4.5% may be exceeded, possibly even the -6% recorded in 2009. Key factors are one of the most severe droughts in recent years, limited state support, cautious consumption, the epidemiological situation, the recovery of EU trading partners and continued relaxed monetary policy.

View the original in Romanian