In order to increase the share of cultural activities in Moldova to 3% of GDP by 2020, Moldova needs to create a set of conditions for the development of creative industries, such as the realization of cultural marketing, strengthening the partnerships with the business environment or the promotion of cultural goods and services for export. This is the opinion of Arnold Vahrenwald, expert of the EU project “Support to enforcement of the intellectual property rights”, who participated on 18 November at the Follow-up "Creative industries: from idea to business".

The event aimed to promote the importance of creative industries and highlight solutions that would boost economic growth in this area. Thus, the German expert shared his experience on the development policies of the creative industries in the European countries, with a special emphasis on copyright.

Currently, the EU acquis of copyright is contained in 11 EU directives and two regulations, but each of the 28 EU Member States has its own provisions. At the same time, the shares for audio-visual products are also different, and for this reason, exporting can become a difficult process for some producers.

In this regard, Arnold Vahrenwald recommends introducing a unified legal framework for EU copyright law: “While there is no single provision for the protection of copyright, we must benefit from the rights established at European level. For example, at Greek radios broadcast national music up to 90% of the broadcasting time, and in France, this share is 40% of the radio broadcast".

Measures in the area of copyright should focus primarily on increasing efficiency and added value. Efficiency improvements are most needed in the core copyright industries and could be introduced either by increasing value added, by optimizing employment in industries with largely state-owned capital (especially press, radio and television), improving investment attractiveness or increasing the value added of public libraries. Other specific recommendations include improving copyright statistics, conducting annual assessments of the economic contribution of the copyright industries, intensifying research in the field of copyright, providing support to SMEs that deal with copyright, etc., it is mentioned in the presentation of the expert.

"Moldovan audio-visual consumers are both Romanian and Russian speakers. And for this reason, it is difficult for this industry to be developed in this country, but not impossible. One solution would be to respect a distribution quota. Therefore, it would be fascinating to have as much national music production on the radios in Moldova", said Arnold Vahrenwald.

The following speakers took part in the Fellow-Up discussions: Lilia Bolocan, General director of State Agency on Intellectual Property (AGEPI); Olga Radu, President of the Association of Creative Industries; Iurie Badicu, composer, producer and music critic; Vlad Costandoi, Sens Music Director, President of the National Music Industry Association; Daniela Burlaca, actress, Director and founder member of "Studio Genesis Art" Theater; Alexandrin Buraga, architect, entrepreneur, and Dumitru Talmazan, a digital communication specialist.

The creative and cultural industries in the Republic of Moldova generate 3.31% of the GDP of the country, and 3.58% of the workforce is employed in this sector. The areas with the largest share of GDP are Software (46.5%), Press (17.5%) and Advertising (15.2%), according to a study conducted in 2015 with the support of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), at the request of the AGEPI.

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The Technical Assistance project "Support to enforcement of the intellectual property rights" in the Republic of Moldova is funded by the European Union and is implemented by a Consortium led by Archidata Srl (Italy) together with European Profiles SA (Greece) and Business and Strategies in Europe S.A. (Belgium) for a period of 2 years until November 2018.

For more information please contact Ana-Maria Veverita, Expert on media and communication, veverita@ipr-moldova.net [1].