Moldpres
Moldpres is Moldova’s principal news agency, serving as both a provider of up-to-date information on national developments and the official publisher of Monitorul Oficial, the country’s gazette of record that carries all legally binding acts and regulations issued by Moldovan authorities.
Media assets
News agency: Moldpres
State Media Matrix Typology
Ownership and governance
Moldpres traces its institutional lineage to ATEM, the Soviet-era news agency dissolved in 1990 during the waning years of the USSR, when Moldova was still a Soviet republic. In 1994, following independence, Moldpres was reconstituted as a state-owned agency of the Republic of Moldova.
A significant institutional shift occurred in 2018, when the agency was reorganized into a public institution, with the State Chancellery—the Moldovan government’s central administrative office—designated as its founding authority. Since then, Moldpres has formally operated under the name Information State Agency Moldpres.
Leadership appointments remain firmly in government hands. In 2024, the State Chancellery named Vitalie Hadei, previously director of the newspaper National, as the new director of Moldpres. As of mid-2025, Hadei continues to lead the agency.
Source of funding and budget
The financial model of Moldpres remains closely tied to state structures, with the Monitorul Oficial providing nearly all of its revenue. In 2020, Moldpres reported a budget of MDL 19.7 million (approximately US$ 1.1 million), with 99% of income stemming from sales and subscriptions to the official gazette. All state institutions are legally required to purchase or subscribe to it, guaranteeing Moldpres a captive market. The agency’s financial flows are managed directly through treasury accounts held at the Ministry of Finance.
By 2022, Moldpres’s budget had contracted to MDL 17.1 million (roughly US$ 875,000), again with the lion’s share derived from Monitorul Oficial revenues, as documented in government financial reports. Figures for 2024 and 2025 are not yet publicly available, though local observers suggest the agency’s financial dependency on its gazette sales and state-mandated subscriptions remains unchanged.
Editorial independence
From an editorial standpoint, Moldpres functions less as an independent news organization and more as an official channel of the Moldovan government. Journalists and media experts interviewed in April 2024 confirmed that the agency’s editorial agenda is tightly controlled by state authorities, with little to no expectation that Moldpres will publish critical reporting or investigative journalism.
The agency’s own mission statement explicitly frames its role as disseminating information about government policies and the activities of state institutions. Unsurprisingly, no domestic legislation provides for Moldpres’s editorial independence. Although the agency does maintain an internal ethical code for employees, this is purely aspirational and does not carry the force of law.
August 2025