Economic instruments : for air pollution these are limited to emission charges and fines, which contribute to the Ecological Fund, operating for the time being in the Chisinau area only (see also Part: Urban Environment).

The base rate of payments for air pollution by stationary sources is first determined by the expected total pollution abatement costs.  The rate charged also depends on the type of pollutant and the location of the emitting source.

The development of taxes on air pollution (1992-1996) is shown in Table 4.4.  The taxes were introduced in 1991, but rates were so low that they did not influence firms until they were indexed in 1993 (leading to a 13-fold increase), in 1994 (a 39-fold increase) and in 1995 (a 195-fold increase) .
However,  Republic Moldova  have no adequate equipment to ensure regular and complete monitoring of polluting sources for compliance with norms or to react immediately in the event of excessive and/or accidental pollution.

Table 4.4:  Taxes on air pollution, Lei/tonne

 
Source:  DEP, Provisional Instructions on the Application of the Standards Governing Payments for Pollution. Chisinau, 1991.

The capital investment for air protection in the State budget is small.  In 1995 it represented only 4% of the total real capital investment for the protection of the environment. Industry primarily invests in air protection by keeping the existing installations running and spends about 6% of its total operating cost on air emission control.

Regulatory measures complement the economic instruments. The Republic operates a system of permits to pollute. In 1994, 1995 and 1996, power plants did not exceed the admissible emission ranges (AER).  National standards are controlled through the Fundamental Standards of the Standardization System, adopted by the Department of Standards, Metrology and Technical Control (Moldavstandard). The limits of admitted concentrations (LAC) are developed for 543 of these pollutants. In Table 4.5 some Moldovan ambient air quality standards are compared with WHO values.

State ecological expertise (SEE), although applied well before, has been institutionalized and given methodological guidance since the adoption of the 1996 Law on Ecological Expert Evaluation and the Evaluation of Impact on the Environment.  Althoughstill highly centralized, the new procedures involve some form of public participation.

In addition, norms for stationary sources are controlled by the State Ecological Inspectorate through instrumental measurements, in general annually and adjusted on that basis to the production level, where appropriate.