Digital economy

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and the need to identify new sources of economic and commercial growth for producers of goods and service providers in the Republic of Moldova, as well as to facilitate remote interaction between the Government, the business community and consumers, the Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure conducted an analysis of immediate constraints and identified urgent stimulus measures aimed at boosting the digitization process of the national economy and the development of e-commerce.

Thus, there are several blocks of problems to overcome which require immediate action and mobilisation of the efforts of the Government, the private sector and development partners:

1. Low level of awareness among small and medium-sized enterprises about the opportunities offered by e-commerce for direct and fast access to consumers of goods and services, respectively – low level of investment in this branch of the economy;
2. Constraints and lack of information on remote interaction methods Government/Business/Consumers;
3. Customs and tax procedures that are too complex and discouraging to promote eTrade and eExports;
4. Slow competition and insufficient offers for online payment processing services, especially on the eExports dimension;
5. Underdeveloped courier market and low level of utilisation of the opportunities offered by the postal sector – both for domestic and international trade.

More details on the actions of the Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure to boost the digitization of the national economy and the development of e-commerce can be found in the Roadmap.

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In the context of the implementation of the provisions of the Roadmap for boosting the digitization process of the national economy and the development of e-commerce approved by the MEI on the Economic Council platform, in order to overcome the legislative constraints existing at the moment, which limit the possibilities of digital interaction between the Government, the business community and consumers, with the support and expertise of the Economic Council, the following was developed Draft law for the modification of some normative acts .

The draft law provides for the amendment of 26 normative acts, aiming to:

• overcoming impediments related to remote interaction with several public authorities and equating digital and paper-based acts and decisions;
• Recognition of qualified electronic signatures issued by qualified EU providers in accordance with the EU Regulation on electronic identification and trust services (eIDAS);
• bringing certain aspects of personal data protection in line with European practice, in particular – repealing the notification/registration of personal data controllers to the NCCDP and simplifying the form of consent of individuals in the context of online interaction;
• regulating the procedure for remote registration of companies and amendment of incorporation documents.

Thus, by promoting this bill, we will be able to move even closer to the basic objective – revising the current way of regulating horizontal interaction processes, with a shift of emphasis from traditional (paper) to digital interaction and – making the most of the advantages of technological developments.

Draft Government Decision for the approval of the Regulation of the Fund to support digital innovations and technology startups

The draft was drawn up in accordance with the provisions of Art.15(1) lit. c) of the Law no.77/2016 on information technology parks and the Strategy for the development of the information technology industry and digital innovation ecosystem for 2018-2023.

The project aims to contribute to solving the following problems:

• the lack of a funding mechanism for IT startups, regulated and supported by the Government;
• the insufficiency of IT solutions for the local market;
• local IT companies are focused on outsourcing services, customization, development of foreign companies’ solutions, to the detriment of their own IT projects;
• the value added from the sale of digital products and/or services is largely captured by non-resident foreign companies;
• The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the suspension of local contracts for many IT companies and support is needed to develop new IT solutions and identify customers in other industries.

The provisions of the draft are aimed at regulating the activity of the Fund to support digital innovations and technology startups, the principles of the Fund’s activity, its mission, objectives, how the Fund’s resources are formed, as well as how the process of financing digital innovations and technology startups operates and is organised.

The rapid study on the development of e-commerce in the Republic of Moldova, prepared by USAID Structural Reforms in Moldova Program experts

The document includes 37 topics of economic digitization.

According to USAID experts, there are elements for e-commerce in Moldova, but they are not exploited either by business or by state institutions.

One of the conclusions reached by the experts is that there is no clear definition of e-Commerce in Moldova. And the rules governing e-commerce in our country contain a number of loopholes, especially in the area of online payments and logistics, i.e. how and in what way the consumer receives the product purchased on the Internet.

According to experts, e-commerce is poorly developed in Moldova and because we Moldovans buy more from foreign markets than from the local market, and that’s because there, the same product is even 50% cheaper.

E-commerce is not attractive to the Moldovan business community either, mainly because of outdated regulatory provisions. These include how the purchaser gives consent to the processing of personal data, and the remote identification of service users.

MPA Service Development Concept

The project is implemented with the support of the United States Agency for International Development and the Government of Sweden in the framework of the “Tekwill” project.

The objective of this Concept is to develop the relevant prerequisites for the modernization of the Government Payment Service of the Republic of Moldova (MPay) and the creation on its basis of a National Electronic Payment Processing Platform (PNPPE), which will integrate in addition to public service providers and payment service providers (PSPs), other entities such as public utility providers, e-commerce service providers, International Electronic Transfer Systems (ITES), but will also provide new facilities for end users (economic agents and individuals). This modernisation is very important for the authorities of the Republic of Moldova (RM) both in terms of the need to promote e-commerce and cashless payment services on a large scale, and also because of the need to face the new challenges related to the Covid 19 pandemic, which has changed the whole economic environment and has drawn attention to the need to intensively promote electronic (remote) services.

The creation of the PNPPE aims to ensure at the level of the payment infrastructure, the relevant functional components that will allow the essential increase of cashless payments in Moldova (obtaining the network effect) according to international standards and best international practices.

This Concept was also developed to complement the development efforts of the National Bank of Moldova (NBM), which were outlined in the Concept on Payments Area Development that was recently approved by the central bank.