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