Who are the economic agents that benefit of preferential funding from the World Bank

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On October 24, meeting of the Deputy Minister Octavian Calmîc, Minister of Economy and Infrastructure and Executive Director of the World Bank for Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Israel, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Netherlands and Ukraine was held according to the information offered on website of the Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure. From the offered information, is confirmed the opening of the World Bank to offer preferential credits with the lowest interest rate in Europe to realize investment projects of national importance in different areas. This can only be welcomed because is known that the poor development of the economic infrastructure is an important impediment in the development of the country. It is also well known the important contribution of financial means offered in preferential conditions for development of the abovementioned. On the other hand, the average interest rate for the credits offered by the commercial banks of the Republic of Moldova is a great burden for the local businesses.

However, information from the press release provided by the mentioned governmental institution gives a sense of perplexity. Thus, representative of the World Bank has brought as an example of supporting the Republic of Moldova – a credit offered by the German concern Schwarz-Gruppe to implement in Moldova the Kaufland network expansion project. We would like to draw the attention of profile authorities and representatives of this important international financial authority that the German concern Schwarz-Gruppe is a top family economic entity according to the volume of revenues. In this respect, offering preferential credits in order to develop business of top categories of beneficiaries does not represent in any case an effort of development or poverty reduction, which is, in fact, the World Bank’s activity objective. The German concern Schwarz-Gruppe has sufficient capacities to attract financial resources in commercial conditions necessary to develop businesses managed by them. The mentioned entity does not perform as a main activity object neither charitable nor non-profit activities in the public interest, but is an economic entity focused on maximizing profits. We qualify this credit as an activity performed by the World Bank favouring an economic agent to the detriment of other active economic agents in the concerned business area in Moldova and as an action to concentrate added value generated in the sector, a factor that leads to an increase in poverty and not at all to reduce it as is expected from the activity of the Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure and World Bank.

We hope that the initiative of the World Bank to offer financial means in preferential conditions will target beneficiaries who really need support and not the super-rich ones.