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Bankers call on exporters to cover foreign currency risks

29.05.2007, 19:23 13

Exporters may encounter problems because they are not using hedging instruments to protect themselves against foreign currency risks, states Lucian Anghel, chief economist with the BCR.
"In countries such as Poland or Slovakia, the value of foreign currency forward contracts is twice that of spot contracts, while in Romania it is only 10%," states Anghel.
He also believes Romania may see foreign exchange rate corrections, but for the time being, in comparison with other currencies in the region, the volatility of the domestic currency remains limited.
In addition, Anghel also predicts that the volatility of the RON will be dictated to by regional conditions.
Ionut Dumitru, chief analyst with Raiffeisen Bank, believes that under the circumstances, a foreign exchange rate forecast can be only be validated by reality by chance.
Sergiu Oprescu, chief executive of Alpha Bank Romania, considers that "instead of fearing volatile capital, we'd better provide investors with instruments".
Starting this year, the Finance Ministry has resumed issuing government bonds, both with short-term and long-term maturities of 7 and 10 years.
Oprescu adds that sudden capital outflows are generally penalised by market balancing mechanisms.
Mihai Bogza, the chairman of Bancpost, does not believe that there is an imminent threat to the RON, either, provided that incoming speculative capital only account for 10% of the NBR's foreign currency reserve, which also has to cover around 6 months' worth of imports. However, he also believes it is still difficult to gauge the impact of RON growth on the foreign competitiveness of Romanian companies.

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