DRESSED LIKE WESTERN EUROPEANS
Podcast coming soon
“85 per cent of our production is made for foreign companies, mostly German,” explains Aleksander Swiderski director of ODEMA, a textile factory located in Tiraspol. “They send us materials, models and machinery and we have to deliver them a finished product, with the company’s brand on it and labelled as made in Moldova. The factory continues to function but neither the company nor the local population is actually developing.”
Local goods can only be sold abroad if they are labeled as Moldovan products. Financial transactions have to be made at Russian banks or directly in Moldova since the local currency is not recognized. The lack of political normalisation discourages many foreign investors, while some local companies can only offer cheap labour to European brands.
