Acceleration of Societal and Economic Transformation of Republic of Moldova Based on Czech Experience

Project title: Acceleration of Societal and Economic Transformation of Republic of Moldova Based on Czech Experience;

Implementation period: October 1 – December 31, 2009;

Funded by: Soros Foundation – Moldova, East-East: Partnership Beyond Borders Program;

Partner: Czech-INVENT technological agency (Czech Republic)

Project goal: Provide regional and local self-governing bodies and the relevant representatives of the local NGOs in Moldova with know-how in the field of regional economic development, namely in investment infrastructure (industrial zones) development, using the guidelines and methodology developed in the Czech Republic during the implementation of the industrial zone development program in the regions in 1990s;

Main activities:

• Selected appropriate Moldovan regional partners from among regions where the regional development has already been actively pursued by the local Governments and civil societies;
• Prepared and facilitated a workshop on industrial zones development & financing, and use of pre-accession EU funds;
• Organized a study trip of 12 Moldovan participants to the Czech Republic;
• Prepared and facilitated a round table on “Investment infrastructure development in the Republic of Moldova”;

Main outputs and outcomes:

• Two study visits for the Czech partners organized at the Free Economic Zone Ungheni and the Free Economic Zone Taraclia;
• The 27 participants at the workshop on industrial development held on 28-30 of October 2009 learnt about the Czech experience in developing municipal industrial parks and discussed how this expertise can be applied in Moldova;
• The 12 participants at the study visit in Prague, Czech Republic, got acquainted with the activity of different industrial parks - brownfield investments, parks based on greenfield investments, parks created at the initiative of local or central public administration;
• A framework action plan for investment infrastructure development in Moldova was drafted for the period 2010-2015 and discussed at the roundtable on “Development of investment infrastructure in Moldova” that took place on December 2-4, 2009;

Project impact:

The project has clearly shown that fundamental factor that determines the regions’ investment attractiveness is the quality of economic infrastructure. The Republic of Moldova has a degraded infrastructure at the local level and in many localities some basic infrastructural elements are missing at all (e.g. water or gas supply). Therefore, the start-up costs for initiation of industrial parks could be much higher and cumbersome for local budgets, in comparison with the Czech Republic. It determines the necessity for a more active participation of the Government in supporting the initiatives related to start-up costs for industrial parks. At the same time, this means that external donors have to play a much bigger role in development of industrial parks in Moldova.