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Former Moldovan president urges government to hold urgent trade talks with Russia

Igor Dodon expressed confidence that it’s possible to revise the contract for Russian gas imports and reduce the price by more than two-thirds to about $300 per 1,000 cubic meters

CHISINAU, December 27. /TASS/. Igor Dodon, a former Moldovan president, on Tuesday urged the country’s government to promptly hold trade talks with Russia to discuss exports of Moldovan fruit and imports of Russian gas.

"The Moldovan side should urgently propose convening the Russian-Moldovan intergovernmental commission as soon as possible, at the start of next year, to discuss the whole gamut of economic cooperation issues. They need to participate in CIS meetings, think about using the platform of the Eurasian Economic Union. These are very simple things, but they can provide a chance to save thousands of Moldovan companies and keep tens of thousands of jobs," Dodon, who is now heading the Moldovan-Russian Business Union, told TASS.

He expressed confidence that it’s possible to revise the contract for Russian gas imports and reduce the price by more than two-thirds to about $300 per 1,000 cubic meters.

"In that case Moldova won’t wait and depend on financial aid from the West, which is interested in severing the ties between us and Russia," the former president said.

Dodon earlier agreed to get Moldova an observer status at the Eurasian Economic Union.

State of affairs in Moldova

Dodon lost presidential elections in 2020 to pro-Western Maia Sandu, who hasn’t attended a single CIS meeting. Following the victory of the president’s Party of Action and Solidarity in 2021 elections, Moldova stopped participating in EAEU meetings as well.

The Russian-Moldovan intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation last met in October 2020. The moratorium on customs tariffs for Moldovan crop products expired in 2021. Moldova since then hasn’t initiated any talks with Moscow to ramp up its exports to Russia, Dodon said.

Moldovan exports to Russia dropped by 25% from January-October while its imports from Russia jumped by 31.8% thanks to purchases of natural gas whose price tripled this year. Dodon said he believes that the transition of Moldovagaz to market prices in contracts with Gazprom was a mistake.

Moldova has been gripped by an energy crisis since October last year, when the country was too slow in concluding a new contract with Gazprom and faced a risk of a halt of gas supplies. As the government sought to keep rates for consumers low, Moldovagaz delayed payments to Gazprom a few times, receiving warnings. The government intervened and introduced a nationwide emergency. The country’s inflation surpassed 34%, helping to trigger opposition protests.

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