UPDATE - Moldova President Eyes Russian Cash Injection To Transform Economy

CHISINAU (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st September, 2018) President Igor Dodon of Moldova, a small Eastern European nation, said Friday he wanted to transform his country's economy by attracting more investment from Russia.

"Moldova needs an economic breakthrough ... To achieve this we need very large investment ... Moldova is not in the top 10 of Russian investment targets. This should be changed," he said.

Dodon estimated that the nation needed around a billion worth of direct foreign investment in the coming two or three years. He said Moldova wanted to "strike an economic balance with east and west."

Dodon was speaking at a Russia-Moldova economic forum in Chisinau, attended by hundreds of politicians and business leaders from both countries, as well as from the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) of ex-Soviet member states.

Andrei Nazarov, co-chair of Business Russia, an organization uniting 3,000 Russian entrepreneurs, and co-chair of the Russian-Moldovan Economic Council, said Russia could meet that target annually.

"Russian business can invest a billion Dollars in Moldova every year but only if several conditions are met, such as stability and harmonization of laws with the EAEU," he told the forum's plenary meeting.

He said the forum in Moldova had drawn Russian entrepreneurs from over 20 economic sectors, whose businesses had a net worth to the excess of $15 billion.