OREANDA-NEWS. August 21, 2014. This is stated in a quarterly issue of CIS Macromonitor by the Analytic Unit of the Eurasian Development Bank. Against Q 1 2013, Moldova’s GDP grew 3.6% in Q1 2014.

The growth was quite even, making 7.2% in agriculture, 7.1% in industry, 8.5% in construction sector and 5.4% in trade. Among processing branches, the growth was reported by the food industry (20.5%), textile industry (26.4%) and chemical industry (22.9%).

A decrease was reported in the metallurgic industry (0.6%) and in production of machines and equipment (38.7%). In the GDP utilization structure, against Q1 2013, the household consumption increased 0.6% and the capital investment grew 8.6%. In real terms, the exports increased 3.4%, the imports shrinking 0.5%.

Against 2013, inflation in Moldova slightly accelerated, and the consumer price index grew 5.2% in the period between December 2012 and December 2013. As of the end of Q1 2014, it raised to 5.7%. Since the beginning of the year and up to date, the National Bank of Moldova has kept the key interest rate unchanged. NBM explains the increase in the inflation rates by an exogenous increase in food prices.

 In fact, in the reporting period, there was the toughening of the monetary policy which manifested itself in a slowdown of the money supply increase amidst a growth in NBM interventions in the foreign exchange market aimed at withholding devaluation of the national currency under conditions of the larger capital outflow, which was typical for many emerging markets in this period, CIS Macromonitor states.