Moldovan government, World Bank sign economic, climate-related projects
Prime Minister Vlad Filat and World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick today signed the Development Policies and Economic Recovery Project and the Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Project, recently approved by the World Bank, the government's communications and press relations department has said.
Speaking at a briefing after the signing ceremony, Filat said that the two projects due to be implemented in Moldova with the World Bank's support were extremely important.
The premier noted that the Development Policies and Economic Recovery Project was meant to reduce urgent expenses, to adequately distribute social assistance to less well-off people, to increase spending for road infrastructure, to keep small-scale social investments and to gradually streamline agricultural support towards investments in households.
"The Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Project is designed to consolidate the State Hydro Meteorological Service's capacities to forecast grave weather conditions with a new Doppler radar, to elaborate climate/seasonal forecasts and to improve Moldova's capacity to face natural disasters. This project is very important, given the fact that we want to be better prepared for preventing floods in the future," Filat said.
The premier thanked the World Bank and Robert B. Zoellick personally for constantly assisting Moldova.
For his part, Robert B. Zoellick said that it was a great pleasure to be in Moldova, the more so as he is the first World Bank president to visit this country.
"I came to Moldova at the invitation made by the prime minister in January 2010 in Washington. The main goal of my visit is to discuss the government's democratic reforms, its achievements and existing challenges," Robert B. Zoellick said.
He said he knew that Moldova had been hit by the global financial crisis and the latest floods that had inflicted huge damage, and added that the World Bank would identify solutions to assist Moldova to deal with these issues.
"We are going to help Moldova with its European integration aspirations. I know that at the moment, your country is negotiating an association agreement. We can help local economic agents meet the standards necessary to export goods and services to the European market," Robert B. Zoellick said.
He said that the efforts taken by the Moldovan government were already seen, recalling, in the context, the World Bank's report "Doing business", where Moldova was among the reforming countries. The World Bank Group president also specified that the 2.6 billion-dollar assistance given to Moldova was very important and noted that the country should use it efficiently.
Robert B. Zoellick praised the reforms carried out by the government, specifying that Vlad Filat was an energetic prime-minister who wants to rapidly improve the economic indexes and enhance people's welfare. He noted that the Chisinau-based World Bank staff was familiarizing him with the situation in Moldova, in order to identify the needed assistance.
Moldpres
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