Cercel, BRD: All we need is money, there will be good investments for it

The year 2010 will be a year of financial investments, with possibilities to diversify assets on various segments that will follow interesting trends and a RON/EUR exchange rate that might fluctuate between the current level and 4 RON/EUR, "with potential forays below this threshold," anticipates Claudiu Cercel, BRD-SocGen's vice-president for financial markets.

"The capital market will continue to provide opportunities with two-digit yields, even though lower than in 2009, banking interests will remain interesting, despite being only one-digit and gold will be an interesting investment by far, not necessarily for treasuring it. On the forex market, the RON will have a higher potential for strengthening rather than decline, and the exchange rate may go down lower than 4 RON/EUR," Cercel says.

BRD's head of financial markets expects the assets of mutual funds to overshoot the 1 billion-euro mark this year, coming close to 1% of GDP, which other countries in the region overshot a long time ago.

He believes the RON interest decline trend will consolidate, considering there still is a high "premium" over the inflationary rate, and the appreciation of the RON will help curb inflation as long as there is no fundamental demand in the economy that should generate pressures for an increase in prices.

"The market is very liquid now, considering business opportunities in real economy are yet to show. At the same time, we have to be careful so as not to drive a too abrupt appreciation of the RON, because the pendulum-like motion is dangerous." Cercel does not see any risks of speculative attack "at all" in terms of RON depreciation, but says, "a similar move can be used to drive the appreciation of the RON." He notes that all foreign analyses see the RON appreciating.