RO Fiscal Council head expects Moody’s, Fitch take country out of negative watch list

The head of Romania's Fiscal Council, Daniel Daianu, said that he expects the other two major rating agencies - Moody's and Fitch - to follow S&P, which took Romania out of the negative watch list at the end of last week assigning its rating a stable outlook, Economica.net reported.

Romania's fiscal consolidation has already begun, and the budget deficit will be this year smaller than the 7.16% official target - actually smaller than 7%, according to the Fiscal Council head speaking at a conference organized by corporate rating firm Coface.

As regards the economic growth, Daianu also expressed optimistic expectations for 5-6% growth this year.

The optimistic forecast is grounded on the 14% of GDP inflows (soft loans and grants) under the Recovery and Resilience Plan PNRR that would push up the investments to 6.5% of GDP over the coming years.

Although it already started, the fiscal consolidation will be more complicated compared to other countries that do not feature the structural deficits Romania has, Daianu warned.

He also mentioned the risk of sluggish vaccination rate - a risk outlined by a recent poll carried by the health care group Medlife recently.

The Fiscal Council's head suggested that "the business community needs to promote vaccination, not wait for people to get vaccinated, because we risk losing momentum it will be very bad."

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