The Republic of Moldova ended 2023 with an economic growth of 0.7%, which is a very modest figure. According to Minister of Economic Development and Digitalization Dumitru Alaiba, Moldova is at the bottom of Europe in terms of economic development. According to the official, for an economic boom, the country needs an annual growth of at least 8%, IPN reports.
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, Moldova in 2023 saw an economic growth of 0.7% compared to 2022. The Minister of Economic Development and Digitalization said that in order to ensure genuine economic growth, it is necessary to attract investments, increase exports, open new markets and promote the SME sector.
“The good thing is that we avoided recession. The less pleasant part is that this growth of 0.7% is a very modest one. In essence, it doesn’t matter if it’s 0.7% or 1.1% as it’s very little anyway. We are still at the bottom of Europe in terms of the level of economic development and this gap must be narrowed as quickly as possible and for this we need an accelerated economic growth of at least 8% annually in the coming years. Obviously, is not easy to keep such a pace,” Dumitru Alaiba stated in the talk show “Expertise Hour” on JurnalTV channel.
According to the minister, the main engines that ensured the modest economic growth in 2023 were agriculture, the IT sector and the hospitality industry.
“In 2023, the sectors that witnessed growths are agriculture, but agriculture grew following a decline in 2022 due to drought. The IT sector has grown and is in a stable growth of over 5% year after year. In 2023, the hospitality industry grew by 26%. But what we have is not enough. We need new engines of growth, new sectors of the economy. At the same time, we need to increase the efficiency and productivity of existing sectors. Only in this way we will be able to accelerate economic development. At the moment, the economic growth potential is 2%-3% annually, in normal times,” said the minister.
For comparison, Romania in 2023 saw an economic growth of slightly over 2%, while Ukraine, which is at war, reported an economic growth of 5.3%.
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