Moldova – Export Developments and Prospects

Selected Issues Papers, April 2, 2026

Source details

The paper examines various metrics of Moldova’s export performance, including diversification, export relationships duration, export quality, and complexity.
It finds that while progress has been made on a number of dimensions, especially after the EU association agreement, challenges remain, including in achieving greater diversity and sophistication.
Gravity analysis suggests that full EU membership could have a significant positive impact on exports overall but the effects will likely differ across sectors.

Export diversification: Progress observed after the EU association agreement, but greater diversity remains a challenge.
Export relationships duration: Assessed as one dimension of performance; paper reports improvements on several dimensions (specific durations not listed on the landing page).
Export quality and complexity: Improvements noted in some measures, yet overall sophistication and complexity are still limited.
Sectoral heterogeneity: Gains and remaining challenges vary across sectors; improvements are not uniform.

Gravity analysis outcome: Full EU membership could have a significant positive impact on Moldova’s exports overall.
Sectoral effects: The positive effects from EU membership are likely to differ across sectors rather than be evenly distributed.

Consolidate gains from the EU association agreement and pursue policies that promote:
- Greater export diversification.
- Higher export quality and product sophistication.
- Sector-specific strategies recognizing heterogeneous impacts from deeper EU integration.
Use gravity-model insights to prioritize sectors where full EU membership would yield the largest export gains.

Moldova – Export Developments and Prospects
- Moldova – Export Developments and Prospects (Markdown version)
- Moldova – Export Developments and Prospects (PDF)