IMF/WB mission to Romania:

The missions of IMF and World Bank to Bucharest over the past two weeks reached an expert-level deal regarding the sixth evaluation of the stand-by accord with Romania. Mission head said Jeffrey Franks said in a press conference on Monday that the next installment of the deal would be delivered in mid-December should agreed conditions be met.

The head of the mission said the targets set for end of September were generally reached. He said that significant pressure remained on spending, especially in the health sector.

According to Jeffrey Franks:

• Considering the strong impact of the deepest crisis, we expect economic growth to return starting 2011 (1.5%)

• A determined execution of the budget in the coming period would be decisive to reach the established targets.

• We support the effort of Romanian authorities to obtain European funds

• Our mission was successful despite many things are still to be done

• Towards the end of this year we do not believe Romania would drop below 2% and is expected to go positive in 2010. Inflation may exceed expected levels. Adjustment of Romanian economy was not pushed by the IMF but by challenges caused by the crisis

• Constant changes to the fiscal structure in Romania are not productive and we encourage stability

• Our advice is to maintain the current changes for a year or to in order to support fiscal predictability

• We did not discuss an amount for the new deal. It is to be discussed.

• As the global environment is stabilizing, we expect a favorable impact on Romania. We might see a slight growth in Q4, but we believe we'll se economic growth in the first two quarters of next year.