BIRN Fact-check: Is Transnistria Really Economically Dependent on Russia?

Some Transnistrian exporters are taking advantage of the preferential trade system by registering with the central business registry of Moldova and paying taxes to Chisinau.

"The political rhetoric has no connection with the economic reality and pursues completely different objectives that are not in the interests of the citizens of this region but the geopolitical interests of the regime in Moscow," said Sergiu Gaibu, programme director of the Chisinau-based independent analytics centre 'Expert-Grup'.

Exports to Russia in drastic decline

An old soviet T-34 tank is „guarding" the centre of the main city Tiraspol in the breakaway region of Transnistria. Photo: BIRN

Today, Transnistria trades with 20 of the EU's 28 member states, with the European market absorbing more than 70 per cent of the region's exports, mainly textile materials and steel products.

Exports to Russia, meanwhile, have dropped dramatically, from $909 million between 2007 and 2010 to $232 million between 2015 and 2018 and have continued to decline. The Association Agreement is part of the reason, as is Russia's embargo on Moldova since 2013 as retaliation for Chisinau's EU aspirations.

According to Veaceslav Ionita, an expert with the Chisinau-based NGO IDIS 'Viitorul' and former Moldovan economy minister, over the past four years the top importers of Transnistrian goods were EU member Romania [25.4 per cent], Ukraine [23.4 per cent], Russia [16.1 per cent], Italy [nine per cent] and Poland [7.8 per cent].

Moldova itself takes 30 per cent.

That Romania is currently the largest European consumer of Transnistrian products was noted in Tiraspol too in a study by Transnistrian expert Andrey Mospanov presented at a roundtable in May...