Press releases

The Minister for Economic Affairs and Infrastructure, Sergiu Railean, together with the Director General ODIMM, Iulia Costin, today undertook a working visit to the Patronal Association in Flight Industry (APIUS).

As part of the work visit, officials met with the APIUS team. The agenda of the discussion covered several topics, the most important relating to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the light industry in Moldova, the obstacles faced by companies during this period, the reprofiling of some companies as a result of the crisis, the development of e-commerce, as well as the common measures to support the light industry in the country.

According to President APIUS, Silvia Lazu, the COVID-19 pandemic hit factories very much. 75 % of the total number of companies continued to operate with an incomplete number of employees, in part also involved in the production of masks and protective medical equipment. At the same time, 25 % of the number of enterprises shut down the activity in total, of which 5 % went into short-time work and 52 % granted, at the request of the employees, planned leave or on their own account.

Minister Sergiu Railean said that during this period it was important to support light industry companies through support programmes, in particular in developing and promoting online trade so that entrepreneurs can promote and sell their products online.

Director General ODIMM, Iulia Costin urged companies to access The Support Instrument for the Digitalisation of the HEIC, which was launched in June 2020 with the aim of providing support for the development of e-commerce instruments, amid the restrictions imposed during the pandemic crisis.
“The new programme is intended to help businesses create webpages, online shops, but also grants for the acquisition of digital technologies and solutions”.

In the context, APIUS representatives mentioned that, in the medium and long term, they wanted to develop online shops to access international markets, to digitalise processes at all stages of production of an article fashion – from performing machines to automatising and virtualising patterns.

Minister Sergiu Railean and Director General ODIMM, Iulia Costin, expressed all their openness to support APIUS initiatives, which aim to develop online trade tools, to digitalise services.

According to APIUS, 457 small industry factories are registered in the Republic of Moldova at the moment.