<p> NORTH CAROLINA DIPLOMATIC MISSION YIELDS NEW AGREEMENTS WITH FORMER SOVIET REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA

For Release: Immediate
Date: October 4, 2002

For additional information contact:
Captain Robert N. Carver
North Carolina National Guard
4105 Reedy Creek Road
Raleigh, NC 27607-6410

Phone:(919) 664-6244

NORTH CAROLINA DIPLOMATIC MISSION YIELDS NEW AGREEMENTS WITH FORMER SOVIET REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA

RALEIGH -- A visit concluded last week by a delegation of North Carolinians to the Republic of Moldova, a former Soviet republic and now an emerging democracy in Eastern Europe with growing ties to North Carolina, produced new cooperative agreements involving agriculture, education and the professional development of educators, business and health care between that nation and the state.

The agreements include:

holding a reciprocal trade mission the week of Oct. 7 in which Moldovan wine producers will visit wine importers, exporters, producers and distributors in Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Charlotte and Asheville;

a decision to request the extension of a $300,000 U.S. Agency for International Development grant that would continue funding academic exchanges between UNC system universities and Moldovan universities (specifically, UNC-Greensboro and the Moldovan Institute of Management and N.C. State University and the Modovan Agrarian University); the extension would fund these exchanges for two additional years, continuing exchanges begun in 2000;

the signing of a Memorandum of Intent between Wake Forest University Medical School and the Medical University of Moldova for faculty exchanges and cooperation in providing professional development for faculty members; the relationship also incorporates intern exchanges, the first of which began in September.

Managed by the North Carolina National Guard, the relationship between Moldova and North Carolina has flourished since 1995 as part of a federal program called the Partnership for Peace. The program matches American states with new-independent nations, mostly former Soviet bloc countries or former Soviet republics, and fosters cooperation and aid in the areas of education, health care and other humanitarian disciplines, culture, agriculture and military issues. Partnership for Peace states now work with 22 countries worldwide.

In 1999, North Carolina and Moldova signed a Memorandum of Intent, and each formed a committee made up of academic, government and civic leaders. The two committees form a Bilateral Affairs Committee, the members of which met during this most recent visit, which took place Sept. 19 to Sept. 25. The Committee discusses ways in which the state and Moldova can work together to promote cooperation.

North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and North Carolina Rep. Phil Baddour co-chair North Carolina's committee. For a committee roster, go to www.nc.ngb.army.mil/pao/bilateralcommitteemembers.asp.

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