Moldova has an attractive and healthy ecosystem for creative industries, with a favorable environment for collaboration, learning, and development, which enables participants to compete domestically and internationally, with the country growing to become a regional center of creativity and innovation.
Along with the liberalization of Moldova’s economy and its integration into the international value chains, the creative sector in Moldova - which includes the so-called creative industries or cultural industries - has jumped onto a growth without precedent. The Moldovan creative industries possess a great potential for development, with a positive impact on economic growth, with strong chances to comply with international market requirements thanks to its continued high rhythm during the past two years. This sector encompasses a fairly large number of fields - visual arts, musical arts, performing arts, decorative arts, which in turn are divided into numerous sub-domains.
Beginning year 2017 the creative sector has benefited from additional support via the Moldova Competitiveness Program, which is jointly funded by the USAID, SIDA, and UKaid. This assistance has enhanced the sector’s capability to provide complex services and help other industries grow.
Moldova stands well as a destination for creative services thanks to its linguistic diversity, favorable linkages with the West and the East, skilled human resources and talents in particular among youngsters, access to state-of-the-art technology, as well as trade and tax incentives. Statistican reports confirm that in the period 2017-2018 creative sector companies generated 186 million dollars in sales, with creative industry services accounting for 61 million dollars earned from exports and creative industry commodities accounting for 75 million dollars worth of exports. The creative industries have contributed 3.31% of Moldova’s GDP.
The potential for growth is similar to the global trends. In 2018 the number of companies in the Moldovan creative sector increased by 20% compared to 2015, which translates into 1,600 companies and 11,000 jobs.
In 2018 Moldova established a hub of excellence for creative industries - ArtCor - which represents a platform where the private sector and academic circles work together for for innovation synergy, entrepreneurship, and exchange of ideas and experience. Artcor is open for students, freelancers, professionals and amateurs, and startups, which share a space of more than 1,000 square meters, as well as small offices, a conference room, a library, and a records studio. There they have access to educational programs and software for interior design, sound engineering, animation, music, game development, VR etc.
The creative industries are mostly held in private hands, but there is also public control over some of them - most theaters, for example, are state institutions, as are libraries or museums. They also ensure a varied ethno-cultural representation of consumers of artistic events - from classicism and romanticism to modernism, abstractism and neo currents; from opera and ballet to pantomime, one-man show and folk dances; in Romanian, Russian, English, Italian, Gagauzian, Bulgarian, etc.
Teleradio-Moldova is the public audiovisual institution that manages the Moldova-1 TV channel and the Moldova radio station, with national coverage. It faces a strong competition from dozens of private television and radio stations, with a general theme, specific to a particular field or music. This abundance on the local broadcasting market is ensured by the presence of qualified specialists from other fields of the creative industries - journalism, cinematography, advertising, design, web, photography - and the high degree of development of the latters.
The creative industries gave a significant impetus to a number of related fields: the textile industry was favored by the professionalization of the fashion industry, the constructions benefited enormously due to the architecture and interior design, the appearance of a pleiade of young writers boosted the publishing-printing field, just like performers have helped the proliferation of the local music industry, and virtually all local companies have online profiles thanks to website and application developers.
It is difficult to estimate the size and especially the role of the creative industries in the economy of Moldova, especially since a large part of the sector is also engaged in international orders.
Among the creative industries software development is the largest source of revenue to the national GDP and is the second largest industry in terms of employment. It has also demonstrated the biggest productivity compared with the average economy. This performance is due to the competitive advantages, low-cost skilled labor, and tax incentives.
A reader may learn about the size and diversity of the creative sector by visiting the square between the Mihai Eminescu Theater and the Organ Hall in the capital, which is also the favorite place of tourists. There they can contemplate (and buy) paintings by local professional and amateur painters, handmade objects by craftsmen, traditional musical instruments, antiques. That place has condensed an important part of Moldovan soul.