Tiraspol, April 1. /Novosti Pridnestrovya/. The Elektromash plant in Tiraspol is going into forced downtime. About 600 workers will be left without a livelihood. The reason is that the Moldovan authorities blocking the plant’s export supplies. This started back in August last year and is still ongoing.
Let us recall that the customs authorities of Moldova classified the electric motors produced by the plant as dual-use goods (that is, products that can also be used for military purposes). This is completely unlawful: Elektromash’s products have never been considered in this way.
All European and Asian partners with whom Elektromash works have officially notified the Republic of Moldova that the electric motors produced do not belong to strategic goods. The decision of the Moldovan authorities also contradicts the relevant EU Regulation, which contains a clear list of dual-use goods.
However, all these arguments did not convince Chisinau to abandon the illegal blocking of exports. In fact, Moldova has become the only country in the world that has equated electric motors, whose technical characteristics are intended exclusively for sectors of the national economy, to dual-use goods.
Since September 2023, Elektromash has submitted 82 packages of documents to the State Services Agency of the Republic of Moldova for the supply of its products to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Armenia, Latvia and Ukraine. But only 8 export permits were issued, that is, less than 10% of the number of requested applications.
Refusals are always justified in the same way: issuing an export permit will supposedly “damage the security and national interests, the foreign policy of the Republic of Moldova or the decisions of international organizations in which it participates.”
As a result of all this, manufactured products remain in warehouses for months, and customers have already begun to refuse them. Today, the plant’s warehouses contain products worth more than 3 million euros ready for shipment.
From September last year to March this year, Elektromash wrote to the leadership of Moldova more than 20 times with a request to influence the solution of the problem. But all answers are in the nature of formal replies.
The current downtime of the enterprise will deal a blow to entire families and labor dynasties that work at the plant. There are many young specialists at Elektromash. And now all these people are hostage of circumstance. In today's already difficult conditions associated with the unstable situation in Pridnestrovie and beyond, being left without work is a real disaster for any person.
