The Socio-Economic Encyclopaedia of Moldova, First Edition
Automatically translated summary. The full text is available in Romanian.
Marking 35 years of independence, the Independent Think Tank “Expert-Grup”, in partnership with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, has published a volume analysing 35 events, one for each year of Moldovan statehood. It traces the country's path from the collapse of the Soviet economy to the threshold of European Union accession.
Moldova's economy at purchasing power parity grew from 15 billion international dollars in 1992 to over 46 billion in 2025. Public debt fell from 159% of GDP (1998) to about 36%, and unemployment from 14% to 3.5%. Yet the current account deficit reached 14–16% of GDP in the 2020s, and growth since 2022 is barely 1% a year. The volume divides the period into four phases, from the transition shock and the 2014 bank fraud of about one billion dollars to the post-2020 polycrisis and EU candidate status in 2022.
Three forces shaped the outcome: dependence on one market, supplier and income stream; institutional quality; and demographic cost, with the population falling to about 2.4 million in 2024. Moldova remains at roughly a third of the EU average purchasing power, while Romania reached nearly 78%. The lessons are diversification, strong institutions, energy security and a shift towards investment, productivity and exports.
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