Teodor Samoila, Marketing Manager of Teleradio Moldova exclusively informed esctoday.com that Moldova will participate at next year's Eurovision Song Contest in Kiev. Moldova will select their first Eurovision Song Contest representative on 14th February 2005.

Two weeks ago we already had the scoop concerning Lebanon's participation. Supposing that none of last year's participating countries withdrew, the official number of participants has now risen to 38.

As Mr Samoila informed us, Moldovan broadcaster TVM is currently working on the project of the nationional selections for the Eurovision Song Contest. TVM will organize two semifinals and a final. The semifinals will be held in January 2005, followed by a final on 14th February.

For their national selections, TVM will invite popular singers and bands from Moldova. The first Moldovan representative will be selected by a combination of televoting and a professional jury.

Moldova is independent from the Soviet Union since 27th August 1991 and has Chisinau as capital. Located in Eastern Europe it is surrounded by Ukraine and Romania. Moldova has a population of approximately 4.450.000 inhabitants. The languages spoken in Moldova are Moldovan (official, virtually the same as the Romanian language), Russian and Gagauz (a Turkish dialect).