Official Name: Republic of Moldova Capital: Chișinău Total area: 33 846 km2 GDP per capita: $3,415 Native Language: Moldovan (Romanian) Government: Parliamentary republic Population: 3,559,500 Major Religion: Orthodox Christianity Monetary Unit: Moldovan leu (MDL) Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe between Romania in the west and Ukraine in the north, east and south. The capital is Chișinău. In 1991, in the course of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Moldova declared itself an independent state with the same borders as the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic. On July 29, 1994, the new constitution of the Republic of Moldova was adopted. A strip of the internationally recognized territory of Moldova on the east bank of the Dniester has been de facto under the control of the breakaway government of Transnistria since 1990. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the relative weight of the service sector in Moldova's economy began to grow and to dominate GDP (now around 63.5%) as a result of the decline in industry and agriculture. However, Moldova remains the poorest country in Europe. Economy After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, energy shortages contributed to sharp falls in production. As part of an ambitious economic liberalization effort, Moldova introduced a convertible currency, liberalized all prices, stopped granting preferential loans to state-owned companies, encouraged steady land privatization, lifted export controls and liberalized interest rates. The government has agreements with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to promote growth. Recent trends suggest that the communist government intends to reverse some of these measures and recollect land while placing more restrictions on private companies. The economy returned to positive growth of 2.1% in 2000 and 6.1% in 2001. Growth remained strong (6%) in 2007, par http://www.immigration-residency.eu/counsel/europe/moldova/