EWMI’s Center for Private Business Reform in Moldova oversaw three distinct activities in the reform of the private business in Moldova from 1995-2000: (i) the National Land Privatization Program described below; (ii) a capacity building effort which resulted in the restructuring of over 60 private enterprises in Moldova; and (iii) the implementation of the sixteenth (and last) mass privatization effort in Moldova. While all of these USAID-funded efforts were successful, by far the most effective and important for Moldova was the implementation of the National Land Privatization program.

The Moldova National Land Privatization Program (NLPP) resulted in the privatization of over 1,000 of Moldova’s 1,044 collective farms, and in the distribution of over 3 million land titles. In addition, the privatization process also restructured the debts of former collective farms by: (i) offsetting historical debts to the state via the transfer of the farms’ social assets to the government (schools, roads, etc.— property that rightfully belonged under local government care); and (ii) offsetting debts to private creditors with vouchers for future tax payments.