THE NEW GENERATION’S PERCEPTIONS OF THE IDENTITY AND IMAGE OF THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA

Maria GRIGORAŞ Universitatea Agrară de Stat din Moldova

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to identify all tangible and intangible elements influencing the image of the Republic of Moldova within the country and their extension on exports, tourism, and the degree of attracting investment and quality of life, as well as the need for repositioning the image of the country in the existing international environment. To achieve the goal, there were considered the following objectives: the determination and assessment of the components specific for the country’s image of the Republic of Moldova and the necessity of rebranding for this country. That’s why we used the operational information concerning the budgets execution of the administrative-territorial units for the last three years, and namely the fee for local symbols use and a pilot survey. Following the results of the research, we can say that the new generation has rather a negative perception of the features characterizing the country (corruption, bureaucracy, exodus of human capital across national borders), all of them concerning the political environment, however there were also defined the guidelines that will help to design a new brand of the country. Keywords: country branding, co-branding of products and places, the image of the country, geographical nomenclature, country rebranding.