ECONOMIC COUNCIL TO THE PRIME MINISTER OF THE RM

The Secretariat of the Economic Council to the Prime Minister is supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, funded by the UK Government’s Good Governance Fund
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The Virtual Business Community application has generated interest from Investment Councils in other countries

1 October 2021 – Details of the Virtual Business Community Application, which is being developed in Moldova, were presented at the Working Group of Investment Councils led by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The application was presented by the experts of the Secretariat of the Economic Council to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova to the representatives of the other 10 Investment Councils of Albania, Armenia, Georgia, Kosovo, Kyrgyz Republic, Montenegro, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

Experts from the Secretariat of the Economic Council in Chisinau presented to the colleagues details of the 4 modules of the application. Thus, the App, which will be downloadable on mobile phones by business leaders, will connect the Moldovan business community to a range of processes.

According to experts, through this software, Moldovan business people and investors will be able to participate in surveys about the state of affairs in different sectors, the main challenges and proposals to overcome them. Also, business will be able to assess the efficiency of interaction with state institutions. Entrepreneurs will also be able to anonymously report abuses by state institutions.  Through this application, businesses will be regularly informed about draft legislation that may seriously affect their activity.

Representatives of the Investment  Council of Armenia were interested in the idea of their Moldovan colleagues to develop a software dedicated to the business community, which would bring them closer to the authorities and help to promptly inform them about government decisions on regulating entrepreneurial activity. The Armenian experts noted that during the pandemic this link between the business community and state institutions had also suffered in their country, with the Armenian Investment Council trying to reconnect business through a joint chat that sought to strengthen communication between the state and business. But the idea of the colleagues from Chisinau is much more advanced, the foreign experts said, as the application allows the collection of a database from the business community, which is very useful to state institutions in the process of developing economic policies, the experts concluded.

Representatives of the Investment Council of Albania also mentioned the innovativeness of the Virtual Business Community Application. The pandemic has also forced the Investment Council of Albania to think about new tools for digitization of communication between the state and business, and the application is of interest to them. Albanian colleagues have also been interested in whether this software will be “owned” by the state. In reply, the experts of the Secretariat from Moldova mentioned that all the information that business people will submit through this application will be processed and analyzed by the Secretariat of the Economic Council, which will then send them to the institutions that have deficiencies in communicating and working with the business community.  If these are not overcome, the problem will be brought to the attention of the Prime Minister with recommendations to address it.

The application will be managed by the Investment Council Secretariat and is being developed with the support of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The Economic Councils Working Group, led by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, discusses various topics on the agenda of the Councils, with experts from the Investment Councils Secretariat having the opportunity to exchange experience in promoting various pro-business reforms. In the first meeting, which took place on 1 October 2021, the heads of the Secretariats of the Investment  Councils from 11 countries also discussed the topic of Women’s Economic Empowerment, in the light of Montenegro’s experience, as well as the priorities for further work of the Secretariats.

The Secretariat of the Economic Council to the Prime Minister is supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, funded by the UK Government’s Good Governance Fund, and the International Finance Corporation’s Investment Climate Reform Project funded by the Government of Sweden’s International Development Agency.

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