Financiarul

The latest two disbursements, the third and the fourth, of the loan under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stand-by arrangement with Romania will be transferred to the country on Tuesday, head of the IMF Office for Romania and Bulgaria Tonny Lybek told on Monday.

Lybek said that in accordance with the IMF practice, after loan chunks are approved for disbursement by the executive board they are transferred to the beneficiary country in two business days, adding that means the latest disbursements will be transferred on Tuesday but reach the country most probably on Wednesday.
The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday completed the second and third reviews of Romania’s economic performance under a program supported by a 24- month Stand-By Arrangement (SBA).

The completion of the reviews enables the immediate disbursement of SDR 2.18 billion (about 2.45 billion euros), bringing total disbursements under the program to SDR 8.26 billion (about 9.32 billion euros). The Executive Board is reported to have made recommendations to Romania that fall into three main categories.
‘A first message is related to the fiscal policy, particularly the continuation of structural reforms, more precisely the Romanian Parliament approving the fiscal responsibly law, the pension law and the local communities law,’ says IMF senior adviser Mihai Tanasescu.

In completing the reviews the Executive Board also approved Romania’s request for a waiver of non-observance of the end-December 2009 performance criterion pertaining to the ceiling on the accumulation of general government domestic arrears.
Thirdly, because of the current inflationary pressure, the IMF recommended the National Bank of Romania (BNR) to continue the same kind of prudent policies, so that inflation at the end of 2010 will be within the 3.5-percent, plus/minus 1 percent, band.

Tanasescu, a former finance minister of Romania, says the IMF board also discussed the financial and banking sector of Romania. He says that the issues facing Greece clearly do not leave them indifferent, yet cross-border supervision and cooperation in the area of banking supervision have generated good monitoring of Romania.
‘The IMF Executive Board reportedly reached the conclusion that in case of a spillover, Romania is well prepared to weather such contingency, and the Greek share in the Romanian banking system is very solid,’ says Tanasescu.