Parliament has passed first reading changes to legislation that will allow entrepreneurs to open their businesses online. Moreover, the changes in the legislation will now make it possible for business people to make changes to their business incorporation documents online, and even liquidate their business online.

At the moment the legislation contains a number of hurdles in the process of registering a business remotely. In order to make changes in the business incorporation documents, the entrepreneur has to physically go to the institutions. In the last two years, however, due to pandemic restrictions many entrepreneurs have been stranded abroad or quarantined, and not being able to make all the necessary changes remotely has severely limited their business activity.

Thus, after the second reading vote, the legislative changes will require authorities to accept remote registration and liquidation of business and to make changes to incorporation documents using electronic signatures and electronic documents.

The remote provision of services for opening, liquidating and amending business incorporation documents is highly anticipated by the Moldovan business community. These proposals came from the business association sector, a member of the Economic Council to  the Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova, in the process of drafting the Roadmap for boosting the digitisation of the national economy and the development of e-commerce.

Subsequently, national and international experts from the EBRD, GIZ Moldova, USAID (Structural Reforms Programme in Moldova) and IFC, at the request of the Ministry of Economy, within the platform of the Economic Council to  the Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova, drafted the legislative amendments, approved today by the Parliament in the first reading, which are part of the first legislative package for the digitalization of the economy.

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.