The new agri-food market in Ungheni, built on Decebal Street, is nearing completion. Beyond the construction site comes the part that will matter day to day for buyers and sellers — the rules under which it will operate. A first step toward setting them now appears on the council’s agenda, for the moment only as a proposal.
The Ungheni Municipal Council convenes in an ordinary session on Friday, 21 August 2026, from 3 p.m. (15.00). Among the 16 items on the agenda, item 3 is a draft decision: „initiating public consultations on the operating concept of the (newly created) Agri-food Market”, with mayor Vitalie Vrabie as rapporteur. The council is therefore set to decide whether to open for public discussion the document that will establish how the market is administered, what tariffs it has, what its opening hours are and what place the producers from Ungheni have. The consultation itself would only follow after this vote.
What would be put up for discussion
The physical market — the pavilions, the utility networks, the paving — falls under a works contract. The „operating concept” is something else: the market’s rulebook. If it were submitted for consultation, it would answer practical day-to-day questions: who manages the market, how much a seller pays for a spot, on which days and hours it is open, what categories of goods are sold where, how a stall is reserved and what priority local agricultural producers have over goods traders.
These are the details that make the difference between a market that works and one that does not. The law, in fact, requires that these rules be set out in an act approved by the council, not left to chance.
What the law says about how a market works
A market’s rules are not written on a blank page. They have a national framework, in Law No. 231/2010 on internal trade and in Government Decision No. 206/2023, which set out a few things worth knowing before any discussion on rules:
- The market is created by a decision of the local council, and its regulation is likewise approved at this level. Ungheni is following this path.
- The administrator may be the city hall itself, a municipal enterprise or an economic operator. Who will manage the new market is one of the substantive decisions of the concept.
- At least half of the commercial area of an agri-food market is reserved, by law, for domestic producers, on the basis of a producer’s declaration. Spots for itinerant trade are allocated daily, on a „first come, first served” basis. For Ungheni, where market day gathers producers from the district’s villages, this is a provision that matters directly.
- The tariffs for the market’s services are set by the administrator, coordinated with the city hall, on principles of transparency and non-discrimination. The law, however, prohibits charging any payment for mere access to the market.
- A detail often confused: the market’s tariffs (set by the administrator) are not the same thing as local taxes — the market tax and the tax on commercial units, which the council votes together with the budget. These are different payments, with a different regime.
The framework regulation on which all this rests was, in fact, recently updated: the old 2004 model regulation for markets was replaced, from November 2023, by GD No. 206/2023.
How a public consultation unfolds
The procedure is established by Law No. 239/2008 on transparency in the decision-making process — the law that gives citizens the right to intervene before a decision is voted.
„Initiating consultations”, as it is worded on the agenda, means opening the stage preceding the vote, not approving the regulation. If the council adopts the initiation, the city hall would have to follow a few steps provided by law:
- Publishes the notice and the draft concept on the official website, sends it to interested parties and posts it at its headquarters. The notice must contain the rationale, the deadline and — importantly — the name, telephone and e-mail of the person responsible for receiving proposals.
- Receives recommendations for at least 10 working days from the publication of the notice. Anyone — a seller, a producer, a buyer, an association — may submit proposals in writing, including by e-mail, to the contact details in the notice. The deadline may be extended on request.
- Draws up a file and a synthesis of the recommendations received, which it publishes, and the draft reaches the vote accompanied by this synthesis.
In this way, a consultation becomes the legal channel through which a resident of Ungheni can request, for example, more suitable opening hours, spots reserved for producers from their village, or clearer tariffs. The draft concept is not yet public — it would appear together with a possible opening of the consultation, on the city hall’s page and, as a rule, on the particip.gov.md platform. The recommendation deadline would run from that publication.
Where the market stands now
The market is being built on a plot of about 1.2 hectares on Decebal Street, through a contract worth over 17.5 million lei from the Centru Regional Development Agency, funded for the most part from the National Fund for Regional and Local Development, with the construction of the pavilions awarded to the „Proex Construct” firm. We have documented the value, the funding and the project’s timeline, as well as the two access roads built toward the market by Servicii Comunale.
According to the project documentation, the market has 30 „commercial tents” — pavilions designed for the warm season, whose elements are stripped off in winter. In parallel with the structure, the market is being fitted out (containers, finishes, sanitary facility), and the works are nearing completion. Precisely because the market is at the end of construction, its rules are now reaching the council’s table.
Why it matters for the residents of Ungheni
The most concrete stake is held by the traders from the old site — about 80, as we documented earlier — and the agricultural producers from the district, for whom a well-regulated market means a secure place and predictable tariffs. But the market’s rules affect anyone who crosses its threshold: the opening hours, the cleanliness, the sanitary facility, the order of the stalls, the price of a spot.
Market day already crowds the city — we showed how Alexandru cel Bun Street jams up on Thursdays and Sundays. The way the new market will operate — from opening hours to the allocation of spots — depends on the same rules. A public consultation, if it is opened, is the moment when they can be weighed before they are set.
The Municipal Council session takes place on 21 August. What the council decides on item 3 will show whether and when the consultation opens; in that case, the notice and the draft concept would appear on the Ungheni City Hall page and on particip.gov.md.