Bilateral goods transports between Moldova and Belarus to be liberalized

The bilateral and transit transports of goods between Moldova and Belarus will be carried out without authorizations, which will facilitate the transport and exchange of goods between the states. The government today approved the signing of a protocol on the amendment of the agreement between the two countries’ governments on international road transport from 9 April 1994.    Under the document, the irregular bilateral, transit transports of persons and goods, as well as to/from third countries will be made without transport authorizations. This will develop the road transport, exchange of goods and will facilitate the travels of persons from both states. Moldovan transport operators ask for more Belarusian authorizations for the carriage of goods. Therefore, additional quotas of authorizations are demanded annually, the negotiations are carried out with difficulty, for the reason of invoking the principle of parity in making the exchange of authorizations. Thus, Moldovan companies often have no possibility to fulfill their commitments of carrying goods on term, according to the contracts concluded, the Economics and Infrastructure Ministry said.   The liberalization of the transports in the bilateral, transit regimes and to/from third countries will allow enhancing the competitiveness of the road transport operators regionally, as well as reducing the administrative burden, including diminishing the operational costs, which will simplify the transport operations.   The initiative on the signing of the protocol on the liberalization of transports belongs to the Moldovan side. The discussions to this effect were updated at a meeting of the governmental commission, held in Minsk on 5-7 June 2017. The government initiated talks on the draft protocol 6 September 2017. A meeting of the Moldovan-Belarusian joint commission in the field of international road transport was held in Minsk on 4 June 2018. One of the subjects tackled at the meeting was the draft protocol. The Belarusian side proposed that the transports of passengers and goods in the bilateral, transit regime and to/from third countries be carried out without authorizations, - an amendment accepted by the Moldovan side.   According to the National Statistics Bureau (BNS), in the first 8 months of 2018,  Moldova exported goods worth 62.3 million dollars to the Belarusian market and imported goods amounting to 74.6 million dollars from Belarus. Official statistics also shows that 87.2 per cent of the goods exports from Moldova and, respectively, 83.5 per cent of all imports are carried out with road transport means.