Financiarul

An IMF mission headed by Jeffrey Franks will be in Bucharest over January 20-27 to discuss the second and the third assessment of the economic aid program for Romania, supported by IMF, the European Commission, the World Bank and other international financial institutions.
The mission will meet the management of the Public Finance Ministry, the National Bank of Romania and will closely cooperate with the delegations of the European Commission and the World Bank, according to the release.

The IMF mission will present its conclusions at the end of the visit, the release informs further. The third tranche (1,409 Special Drawing Rights – SDR, approx. 1.5 billion euros) and the fourth installment (766 million SDR, nearly 0.8 billion euros) of the loan contracted by Romania with the IMF will be released depending on the conclusion and approval of the assessment reports by the Fund’s Executive Board.

Previously, President Traian Basescu had said the IMF assessment should be concluded on January 27, so that ‘the Report should be drafted over January 27 – February 1. It is mandatory, according to IMF rules, that the report is disseminated to the Board’s members with at least two weeks ahead of the Board’s meeting, to be eventually held between Feb. 12 and 15,’ said Romania’s President.

Traian Basescu also stated that no date for IMF Board meeting has been set up, but ‘Romania can receive both the third and the fourth tranche on Feb. 17, if it meets its obligations related to the Budget law’. The IMF loan is granted in eight tranches, spanning a two-year period, has a total value of 12.95 billion euros and, so far, two instalments were disbursed totaling 6.9 billion euros.