Russia, Moldova have more common economic interests

Moldova's ambassador to Russia Pavel Petrovsky considers the session of the Russian-Moldovan inter-governmental committee on trade and economic cooperation that opened in Moscow on Monday "an important event in Russian-Moldovan relations". "The last ten years have clearly shown that economic links that existed in the former USSR cannot be replaced at once," he stressed in an interview with a RIA Novosti correspondent.

After Moldova proclaimed its independence, everyone was sure that the country's traditional products, wines, cognacs, vegetables and fruits, "would automatically find their way to the European market", the ambassador pointed out. Yet they did not. "The West has some certain product standards that neither Moldova nor other CIS countries can meet so far," Petrovsky added.

Russia and Moldova now have more common economic interests, he believes. One of them is the Eurasian Economic Community, the EurAsEC. "It is free from any political implications. It is a solely economic organization providing duty-free product exchange for its members," the ambassador stressed.

In this context Petrovsky believes it "quite illustrative" that Moldova and Ukraine joined the EurAsEC as observers. "It is not long before they will become its full members," he hopes.