Moldova turned its currency into pieces of paper
Business entities in Transnistria will be forced to look for partners outside of Moldova after the banks of this country refused to accept payments in the Moldovan currency - lei.
Deputy Prime Minister of the PMR Sergei Obolonik stated this in an interview with the First Pridnestrovian TV channel, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“The blocking leads to the fact that our economic agents are forced to change the geography of the market and look for other sources of supply, not from Moldova. Moldova will lose sales volume. If someone now leaves for other supplies, there will be no reason to return later,” Obolonik comes to the conclusion.
According to him, the problem with the “Transnistrian” lei has existed since the fall and was raised at an international meeting in Bavaria.
“It was characterized by European experts as a very strange problem that has no basis or prerequisites. These events have no reasonable economic rationale. Lei come to us under completely understandable commercial contracts. Accordingly, when we pay with these lei, it is very strange to ask us questions about their origin,” the Deputy Prime Minister is perplexed.
He added that even before the blockade, Transnistria had nothing to spend 30% of its revenue in lei on.
“By blocking our leu transactions, Moldova turned the Moldovan currency into nothing for us, into pieces of paper. It is irrational for us to take into account lei revenue. This is no longer a means of calculation. After the story with landramat (money laundering and withdrawal through Moldova - ed.), Moldovan banks are already at risk,” Obolonik warned.
Moldovan banks returned transfers in the Moldovan national currency (lei) to 9 Transnistrian enterprises in February under the pretext that the origin of these funds was allegedly unknown. In addition, three large industrial enterprises of Transnistria were denied replenishment of their accounts.
In 2019, Moldovan banks transferred 3 billion 246 million lei from 670 Moldovan enterprises and 15 international organizations, including Western embassies and the OSCE, to the accounts of Pridnestrovian enterprises. Already in February, 24 Moldovan enterprises transferred 3,5 million lei to Transnistria. Moreover, one of the payers was the Ministry of Finance of Moldova, which paid for the maintenance of Romanian-language schools.
Over the past ten years, trade turnover between the two banks of the Dniester has increased 5,5 times. Pridnestrovie supplied electricity, cement, metals, grain and other goods worth $2019 million to Moldova in 255. At the same time, Pridnestrovian enterprises purchased scrap, medicines, food, and transport services worth $120 million from Moldova.
More than 1,5 thousand enterprises from both banks are involved in trade operations. However, 55% of Moldovan imports are scrap for the Moldavian Metallurgical Plant (MMZ) in Rybnitsa and railway services for the delivery of this scrap.
Now (MMZ) cannot pay for purchased and shipped scrap metal. Over the past 2 years, Moldovan economic agents received $170 million from MMZ alone.
Moldova Turns Its Currency into Paper Money