OREANDA-NEWS. November 18, 2009. The document was signed in Chisinau by the Minister of Finance of Moldova Veaceslav Negruta and the World Bank Country Director for Moldova Melanie Marlett. The additional funds will be used to increase the amounts of co-financing grants in order to promote exports, as well as to provide the Moldovan exporters with the new loans to replenish their working capital and the investment funds.

The loans will be provided through the commercial banks. The project includes professional development of the staff, introduction of modern methods of business management and introduction of the new products. Veaceslav Negruta thanked the World Bank for the assistance granted stressing that its first results have already been rather useful for Moldova. In her turn, Melanie Marlett noted that the agreement is the first document signed by the WB with the new government of Moldova.

She expressed satisfaction with implementation of "Improvement of Competitiveness" project, stressing that its additional funding will help the entrepreneurs to overcome crisis and will become more competitive. The "Improvement of Competitiveness" project was launched in 2006 and will last for three years. The initial project budget is US 14.3 million.

The main objective of the project is to assist Moldova in enhancing productivity and competitiveness by improving the business climate, providing companies with the relevant standards, testing services and quality improvement.

In addition, through the regulatory reform, the project helped to reduce the regulatory burden by 35% as well as to meet compliance requirements (from 19% in 2005 up to 11% in 2008), and also assisted to establish a legal framework for creation of the credit bureau which will facilitate access to finance.