Financiarul

Romania can receive tranches three and four of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in an aggregate amount, should the authorities request this and if political uncertainty lingers, IMF representative in Romania and Bulgaria Tonny Lybek told a conference organized by the European Commission’s Representation.

Lybek explained that the next evaluation of the agreement with Romania was scheduled for the end of January – early February 2010 and the fourth tranche should have been released in March 2010, but that the Fund could unlock both tranches in March. Yet the IMF official underscored that the Romanian state now has to get financing at higher costs, whereas the IMF loan carries an interest rate of just 3.5 percent.

‘If it raises local lei, the state pays an even higher interest rate, so additional costs are incurred,’ said the IMF representative, who added that the release of the tranches depends on when the 2010 budget is adopted. The IMF decided to postpone the release of the third loan tranche of about EUR 1.5 billion, because the political situation has prevented the government from referring to Parliament next year’s budget and also from clearly committing to reducing the 2010 budget deficit to 5.9 percent of the GDP.
The fourth IMF tranche worth some EUR 850 million is scheduled for March 15, 2010, depending on the fulfillment of the Agreement conditionalities.