OREANDA-NEWS. December 30, 2009. In the course of 2009, the external transactions of the Republic of Moldova have followed the descending trends of the world economy, both the external trade in goods and services and financial flows having diminished as compared to the previous year.

Thus, the current account deficit of the balance of payments recorded USD 317.71 million over January-September 2009. Its ratio to GDP reached 7.9%, which is 8.0 percentage points less as against the same period of 2008.

The external trade in goods and services recorded a deficit of USD 1373.07 million that declined by 42.6% due to a higher rate of decrease in imports (-35.1%) than in exports (-25.6%).

The exports of goods after processing totaled USD 289.84 million, falling by 19.3% as compared to the first three quarters of the preceding year. However, their share in total exports increased from 29.0% to 31.3%.

For the first nine months of the year, the compensation of resident employees working abroad together with non-resident workers’ remittances were estimated at USD 957.76 million (which is 23.9% relative to the GDP), declining by 33.0% as against the corresponding period of 2008.

The capital and financial account surplus amounted to USD 340.10 million in the first three quarters of the year.

Net foreign direct investment inflows in the domestic economy totaled USD 90.82 million, while in January-September 2008 they amounted to USD 556.70 million. It must be noted that during the global financial crisis investment in equity capital declined by 3.1 times.

The stock of official reserve assets reached USD 1290.54 million as of September 30, 2009. The decrease was particularly caused by an 8 percentage points lowering of the norm on required reserves in freely convertible currencies of authorized banks (which boosted the banks’ available assets in currency and deposits) and by payments related to external debt service. On the other hand, the stock of official reserve assets increased due to the SDR allocation by the International Monetary Fund and to the purchasing of foreign exchange in the domestic market.

The international investment position of the Republic of Moldova remained net debit as of September 30, 2009 and constituted USD 4040.96 million (table 2), increasing by USD 295.01 million as against the end of 2008.

External financial assets fell by 2.1% (or by USD 48.87 million), while the liabilities increased by 4.1% (or by USD 246.14 million).

The gross external debt recorded USD 4292.73 million at the end of quarter III 2009, of which public and publicly guaranteed external debt – USD 1139.51 million, and private non-guaranteed debt – USD 3153.22 million.