August 9, 2024 UPDATE
A roundup of local and world news
Newsroom, 09.08.2024, 20:09
MARKET The European Union is the biggest investor in the Republic of Moldova but also the main market for the Moldovan products. Deputy Prime Minister Dumitru Alaiba, who is also development minister in the government in Chisinau, says that roughly two thirds of the country’s exports are making it to the community market and over 80% of direct foreign investment comes from the EU countries. Romania, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany are the main investors in the Moldovan economy. Thanks to the measures aimed at liberalizing trade with the EU, the exports made by the Moldovan companies have reached impressive rates, Alaiba says. The country’s export of grapes and plums, for instance, has doubled since 2021 while the export of apples has grown one hundred times.
RATE Romania’s Central Bank has revised down its inflation forecast for the end of 2024 to 4.0%, from a previous 4.9% and expects it to hit 3.4% by the end of 2025, according to data released on Friday. According to the bank’s governor Mugur Isarescu, the tendency to curb the inflation rate will continue for almost the entire projection interval, but the rate of disinflation is expected to slow down noticeably in the second part of it. It is also mentioned that the trajectory is marked by some oscillations, mainly induced by basic effects associated with past developments, such as increases in indirect taxes in January 2024, with a favorable effect in January 2025, or an increase in fuel excise duty in July 2024, with favorable effect in July 2025.
FESTIVAL The biggest music festival in Romania, Untold, which kicked off in Cluj-Napoca, north-western Romania, on Friday night, brings together major artists from Romania and abroad. Besides concerts, it will also include numerous themed events and parties, and as a novelty, on the main stage, musical pieces will be interpreted in sign language for the hearing impaired people. Authorities have announced a series of measures aimed at ensuring the participants safety. Special attention has been paid to the prevention of drugs consumption and sale.
WAR Ukrainian forces have carried on their onslaught in the Russian region of Kursk for the fourth consecutive day. The governor of Lipetsk, a region neighboring Kursk, said that last night the region was the target of a massive drone attack. According to Reuters, an air base in the area was also hit. This has been the largest Ukrainian ground attack launched on Russian territory since the beginning of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine two and a half years ago. Unlike the previous incursions, in which Russian citizens fighting alongside the Ukrainian army were involved, this time regular Kyiv forces, supported by tanks and armored vehicles, including those received from the United States and Germany, are participating. Ukraine has not officially confirmed the attack, but President Volodymyr Zelensky hinted at it. According to the Financial Times, the Ukrainians have so far captured 11 villages and a total territory of 350 square kilometers.
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