Transdniestria: Free market reforms cut red tape for small businesses

A privately owned store in Tiraspol, the capital of Pridnestrovie: Starting a commercial business just became easier

TIRASPOL (Tiraspol Times) - Capitalism is about to become a whole lot easier in Pridnestrovie (informally known as Transdniestria, in English).

Thanks to a new set of measures by the unrecognized country's Parliament, led by the pro-reform Renewal-politician Yevgeny Shevchuk, legislation is initiated which will encourage the creation of new private companies and give a boost to small businesses.

A package of documents is aimed at streamlining registration and licensing procedure as well as offering tax relief to small companies, the parliamentary press office reports.

Among the incentives: Tax holidays. New companies will be exempt from corporate tax for three years from their date of registration. Red tape is to be slashed, too, which will simply and streamline the procedures for creating new companies in Pridnestrovie. The time needed for registration will be reduced from 10 to 5 days.

"Teenage capitalism"

Wheeling and dealing in the free market is not just for grown-ups: Parliament also wants teenagers to become small-time capitalists in their spare time. Members of the Parliamentary Committee for economic policy, budget and finance in Pridnestrovie approved changes to the sole trader license law that allows full-time students to apply for a sole trader license for days-off and holidays.

The state will subsidize them: The young entrepreneurs will get fifty percent off on the normal license fees. Why? So they can learn on the job and start dabbling in the free market early:

" - Changes to the sole trader license law allowing students to do business will stimulate the student entrepreneurs to gain experience in doing business and they will become skillful entrepreneurs after graduation from the university," explained MP Viktor Guzun in Tiraspol on Thursday.

Boost for small-scale manufacturers

The productive sector will also benefit from the new reforms, with special emphasis on helping small-scale manufacturers get off the ground and produce products locally which until now have been imported from the neighboring states of Ukraine or Moldova.

" - It may be any kind of activity, for instance, manufacturing of ice-cream, chocolate or ravioli, or mini-canneries," said Viktor Guzun. "We should manufacture everything that is possible here [in Pridnestrovie, ed.] and not import it."

MP Mikhail Burla, head of the economic policy committee, expects the new legislation will create more jobs, give a boost to local manufacturing and provide the market with more goods produced within the borders of Pridnestrovie.

The new reform measures aim to make Pridnestrovie's private sector more competitive and increase the role of the free market in the country's economy. According to the press service of the PMR Parliament, in foreign states with a highly developed market economy, seventy percent of all jobs are created by small and medium businesses who also contribute fifty percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

See also:
» Open economy and more free market reforms for Transdniestria in 2008
» Transdniester's Parliament behind "de-Sovietization" changes
» New tax breaks in Pridnestrovie for IT and knowledge industries