Financiarul

The Ministry of Public Finance (MFP) is currently preparing the financing strategy for the first quarter of 2010, while counting also on the tranches to arrive from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Minister of Public Finance Gheorghe Pogea stated after the Tuesday meeting with the technical experts of the Fund.

He also specified that for December 2009 all the necessary resources were already identified, even with the IMF tranche not coming. On Tuesday morning, the Minister of Finance met the chief of the IMF office for Romania and Bulgaria Jeffrey Franks. The MFP official mentioned that the experts of the European Commission and the IMF are currently evaluating in Bucharest the conclusion of the financial exercise 2009.

‘The steps we are taking right now are positive steps. There exists a great probability we maintain below the budget deficit agreed for 2009′, Pogea said. The MFP official also explained Romanian authorities and the IMF experts need to agree on the projection of revenues and budget spending for 2010 too, in order Romania to be able to observe the budget deficit of 5.9 percent of the GDP next year.

Pogea also added that the MFP worked on the finalization of the 2010 budget from a technical viewpoint, so that the draft to be submitted to the Parliament before and not after Christmas.
A technical team from the IMF (the International Monetary Fund) is staying in Bucharest over December 14 and 16, to continue with the technical consultations on Romania’s state budget for 2010.

The arrangement concluded by Romania with IMF, worth 19.95 billion euros, carries a 24- month maturity, with the Fund following to transfer to Romania 12.95 billion euros in total, in eight tranches. The remaining of the amount will come from the EC, WB, EBRD and EIB, as following: 5 billion euros from the European Commission (EC), 1 billion from the World Bank (WB), and 1 billion euro from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB).