BCR: Romania still needs IMF's "guidance" so as not to return to past budgetary excesses

17 aug 2010 Autor: Claudia Medrega

Romania will need further "guidance" from the IMF and the European Commission after the current agreement expires next spring, so that agreed upon reforms should be continued, considering 2012 is an electoral year and past excesses must be shunned, believes Lucian Anghel, chief-economist of BCR, the biggest domestic bank in terms of assets.
"Romania still needs the measures agreed on with the IMF. The Fund could provide Romanian authorities with technical assistance and possibly a new type of loan, which we needn't necessarily draw. We need guidance, we need this 'stamp' of an economy that is recovering under the supervision of international financial institutions," stated Anghel as he presented the bank's quarterly report on macroeconomic targets, which includes projections until 2012.
BCR expects the economy to contract by 3% this year and a GDP advance of 1.2% in 2011.
The fallout of the austerity measures implemented starting July 1 could be quite rapidly absorbed by the Romanian economy and we could expect a gradual advance in quarterly GDP in seasonally adjusted terms starting the last quarter of this year, Anghel says.