Moldova's economy in charts: inflation, exchange rate, GDP, wages

Inflation shows how quickly the consumer basket gets more expensive: at 7% annual inflation, the same shopping costs 7% more a year later, and cash under the mattress loses exactly that much purchasing power. The NBM targets 5% inflation with a tolerance interval of plus/minus 1.5 percentage points — the gold band on the chart. When inflation leaves the band, the central bank typically reacts through the base rate, which then moves loan and deposit interest across the economy.

The NBM base rate is the reference price of money in lei: deposit and loan interest — including your mortgage rate — follows it. The central bank moves it to bring inflation back inside the target band, while the corridor between the overnight deposit and overnight credit rates frames where market interest settles. The leu's rate against the euro and the dollar, set daily by the NBM, feeds directly into fuel prices, import costs and the leu value of money sent home from abroad. Since 02.01.2025 the euro has been the reference currency for setting the leu's official rate; the dollar rate is still published daily.

Gross domestic product adds up everything the economy produces in a period: goods, services, investment. When real GDP grows, jobs appear and incomes rise; when it falls for two quarters in a row, that is a recession. Moldova publishes quarterly GDP with a lag of roughly one hundred days — the Eurostat series below is the freshest available anywhere. IMF projections for the coming years appear on the chart as hollow, clearly-labelled columns so they cannot be mistaken for actual data.

The average monthly gross wage across the economy, for the reporting quarter, has passed 15,000 lei, but the average hides wide gaps between sectors and regions. The ILO unemployment rate measures, through a survey, how many people are actively looking for work. Mind the jump: from 2026 the Labour Force Survey (LFS) follows the methodology revised by the NBS in December 2025, and the rate climbed from 2.9% to 10.4% — a methodology change, not a sudden loss of jobs. The two series are not directly comparable.

Moldova imports roughly three times more than it exports — a chronic trade deficit, visible in the lower panel of the chart. The gap is largely covered by remittances and external financing. Exports are dominated by agri-food products, automotive cables and textiles; imports by energy, machinery and consumer goods. Both series come from the NBS monthly, with a lag of about two months behind the reporting period.

Remittances — the money Moldovans working abroad send home — are one of the country's most important sources of foreign currency and a direct social buffer: they flow into consumption, construction and children's education. The current account nevertheless stays in deficit, balanced by foreign investment and borrowing. The chart below uses the NBM's monthly series; the cards and the matrix also track the IMF's quarterly series, which updates on a different calendar.

Moldova's government debt remains moderate by European standards — around a third of GDP — but it is rising: the budget consistently spends more than it collects, and the difference is borrowed. The IMF projects debt of about 42.5% of GDP by 2031. The sovereign ratings from Moody's, S&P and Fitch sum up how risky creditors consider that borrowing. On the revenue side, Moldova applies flat 12% rates for both corporate tax and personal income tax.

Every indicator on this page comes from an official source, with its reference period and date. The table below shows who publishes what, how often, and what quirks each series has.