Background

The economy of Moldova is small and open. It has one of the most liberal trade regimes and one the highest shares of the foreign trade in GDP in the region. The burgeoning foreign trade also helped country to weather well the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008-09. Indeed, the post-crisis recovery was propelled by rebound in remittances, rebuilding of capital stocks and by boom in exports. However, in 2012 the economy has appeared to be out of steam. After GDP posted a spectacular growth of 6.4% in 2011, the economy slowed down with an expected growth rate of 0.3 per cent in 2012. Furthermore, investment was sluggish, while remittances have never recovered to the pre-crisis level. Ultimately, after expanding by 40 per cent in 2011, exports have grinded to a standstill. Given that external economic outlook remains dim, further economic gains should be sought via more comprehensive domestic structural reforms for boosting country’s competitiveness. This imperative brings the barriers to trade issues, which are long overdue, to the top of the Government’s policy and regulatory reform agenda. Furthermore, as agriculture has been in a vicious year-cycle of adverse climate conditions in 2012 the domestic producers need various cross-board improvements to offset the negative effects on competitiveness the climate might have.

Further stimuli to the trade expansion and diversification should be probably sought on with the respect to internal barriers to trade. Such barriers may range from the quality of transport infrastructure and logistics, availability of quality infrastructure, and regulatory issues including customs administration, certification goods, tax burden and administration, transaction costs, competition issues along the value chain. All these issues ultimately represent costs for the Moldovan business and as such may dent and undermine competitiveness of Moldovan companies and goods on abroad markets.

While there is significant room for improvement in Moldova on most of the all abovementioned aspects, these are mostly formal and informal regulatory issues that came recently to the fore. Thus, this report   will seek to identify and prioritize key internal barriers to foreign trade with regards to agrifood exports (fresh fruit and vegetables) and provide relevant and feasible policy options and specific regulatory recommendations that could lead to dismantlement of the identified barriers. The prioritization shall be based on several criteria to be agreed with the majority of key stakeholders. At same time, one of the key criteria is impact in overcoming a particular barrier and the feasibility of finding suitable solutions in short-term.

Duties and Responsibilities

SCOPE OF WORK AND EXPECTED OUTPUT

The main scope of work is to develop a National Study on key internal barriers to trade in the fresh fruits and vegetables sub-sector in Moldova, including feasible policy and regulatory recommendations and options to overcome such barriers in a short and, where feasible, in a longer term. Furthermore, the team of consultants shall be able to address key policy recommendations in providing needed input in the modernization and adaptation of the existing regulatory framework, particularly through providing conceptual inputs to draft regulatory acts to amend the existing framework in the concerned areas.

As mentioned above there is a series of internal barriers to trade in Moldova that impede expansion of trade and dent competitiveness of Moldovan companies and goods. Indeed, as a recent report mentions, key barriers for foreign trade in Moldova are those related to the weaknesses of the institutional and domestic regulatory frameworks, other administrative barriers and corruption. The situation is further aggravated by the limited ability of the local, mostly small or mid-sized, agriculture businesses often lack bargaining power and necessary clout to push the needed regulatory reforms and help overcome the entrenched vested interests in the respective sectors. Furthermore, they often lack ability and nous to help reform-minded officials in formulation of the policy measures to be taken to overcome existing obstacles to trade. With so many obstacles, there is need for clear prioritization of the obstacles in order to ensure that policy options and regulatory recommendations target the most critical constraints. This will ensure that Report’s recommendations, once put into practice, turn out to be a game-changer and pave way for systemic tackling and dismantlement of the identified barriers. To address the aforementioned issue the report will be based on the inclusive participatory involvement of all relevant stakeholders, both from the private and public sectors. The prioritization of the barriers will be done on a clear set of criteria that shall be endorsed by the stakeholders.

Based on a case study, the Report will highlight how a specific, prioritized and easy to measure and quantify set of internal barriers is affecting foreign trade of a company or companies within the agrifood segment. In constructing the case study, the team of consultants shall take into consideration recent analytical work undertaken by the World Bank and other donors.

OBJECTIVES OF THE CONSULTANCY ASSIGNMENT

 For the international consultant:

• Contribute to the identification and prioritization, through wide consultative process and use of regional experience, of the key internal barriers to foreign trade with regards to agrifood sector in Moldova;
• Provide qualitative and quantitative analysis of the macro- and micro-economic impacts and costs of the prioritized barriers, on the basis of a case study(ies) identified in tandem with the national consultant and widely consulted/agreed with key stakeholders;
• Substantially contribute to the generation of the list of specific policy and regulatory recommendations and policy options  and roadmap for their implementation to consistently address the prioritized barriers, and in particular the barrier(s) analyzed as part of the case study(ies).

• Provide support to the international consultant in identification and prioritization of the key internal barriers to foreign trade with regards to agrifood sector in Moldova; the prioritization criteria shall be developed by the team and consulted with key national stakeholders;
• Suggest list of possible case studies to be analyzed and costing performed by the international consultant; consult the list with relevant national stakeholders, both private and public;
• Contribute to the development and dissemination of the key policy and regulatory recommendations and options to consistently address the prioritized barriers;
• Provide logistical and translation support to the international consultant.

Competencies

• Strong strategic thinking ability;
• Advanced professional documents drafting abilities;
• Excellent communication and teamwork skills.

Required Skills and Experience

• Advanced degree in Economics, Social Science or other relevant fields.

• At least 7 years of proven analytical skills and previous experience in policy analysis, development of comprehensive analytical reports in socio-economic field; previous extensive experience in quantitative methods of analysis and econometric modeling the economic impact is required;
• At least 7 years of demonstrated experience in comparative analysis, research, monitoring, assessment/evaluations in trade and promotion of foreign trade;
• Familiarity with the situation of the agrifood sector the region; knowledge of the Moldovan context would be a strong advantage;
• Knowledge of the EU regulations, including institutional, legal and policy frameworks, in the area of foreign trade.

• Fluency in English. Knowledge of Romanian and/or Russian is an advantage.

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

• Cover letter, explaining why they are the most suitable for the work;
• A brief methodology on how they will approach and conduct the work;
• Financial proposal;
• Personal CV including past experience in similar projects and at least 3 references, or dully filled Personal History Form: http://sas.undp.org/Documents/P11_personal_history_form.doc.

The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount. In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (including daily fee, travel, per diems, and number of anticipated working days).  
 
Travel:

All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. This includes all travel to join duty station/repatriation travel.  In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the Individual Consultant wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources. In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

For complete information about this vacancy, including detailed tasks and responsibilities, full and detailed description of the evaluation procedure which will be applied, as well as the UNDP General Conditions of Individual Contract, please refer to the Terms of Reference and the Individual Consultant Procurement Notice published at the UNDP Moldova website, Jobs Section: http://www.undp.md/jobs/jobdetails/268/