Moldovan PM says blocking of roads, customs not to bring subsidies

Chisinau, 20 February /MOLDPRES/ - The blocking of roads and of the customs will not bring subsidies. Prime Minister Dorin Recean has made statements to this effect, in the context of the protests staged by farmers.  

„It is true that the agriculture sector, in general, is more vulnerable and is exposed to more environmental risks, especially now that we have climate changes; yet, this puts even a higher responsibility on us, the government, to allocate these subsidies where needed and direct them where we produce value added and where we can have irrigation systems,’’ Dorin Recean said.    

The PM also said that ‘’there are also people who, with good reason, need support, especially the producers of cereals.’’ ‘’Better to say, some of these cereals producers, who were hit on the period 2022-2023. Accordingly, in 2023, we allocated more money, in order to partially compensate these losses borne by some producers of cereals,’’ the official noted.     

Thus, in 2023, over 2,000 economic agents, cereals producers received compensations worth 200 million lei, after which another about 3,000 cereals producers received also the return of the excise duty worth about 140 million lei. ‘’And this besides 1.6 billion lei in subsidies, which was used to back the investments carried out by different categories of farmers. There is no other sector of Moldova’s economy to benefit from such a sum of subsidies. For comparison, the road fund, the entire road fund, is of about 1.6 billion lei. Now, the subsidies in the agriculture are also at the same level,’’ the PM concluded.   

Last week, the road of access to and from the Leuseni-Albita customs checkpoint was periodically blocked by farmers, in the context of the protests organized by them.