|REconomy:|N The fertile soil is the base for an extensive agricultural industry. The most important crops are grain, maize, potatoes, sugar beets, tobacco and wine grapes. Stockraizing is extensive.
Foodprocessing and canneries are extensive as is wineprocessing.
The only minerals extracted are lignite and gypsum.
Moldova also have textile manufacturing and chemical plants.
|RHistory:|N Todays Moldova is only a small part os historical Moldavia that included vast areas that today belong to Moldova, Ukraine and Romania.
In the last millennium BC it belonged to Scythia and after that to the Roman empire.
After numerous invasions it became a part of the Kievan Rus kingdom between the 10th and the 12th centuries AD. Conquered by Mongolians in the 13th century.
In the 16th century it came under Turkey and was ceded to the Russian empire in 1812.
In World War II Romania joined forces with Germany and conquered the whole area, but in 1944 Soviet troops reconquered Moldova.
In 1991 Moldova declared itself an independent republic and in 1991 it joined the Commonwealth of Independent Sates along with other ex-Soviet republics.
There has been ethnic clashes in Moldova.
In the southern province Gaguza a Turkish-speaking Christian minority aim to create an independent country, and in the eastern part ethnic slaves are worried about a possible reunion between Moldova and Romania.
