Romanian PM, finance minister want to talk to central bank governor about inflation

Romania’s prime minister Viorica Dancila and finance minister Eugen Teodorovici said on Monday that they were concerned with the growing inflation rate and that they would talk about this with Romania’s National Bank (BNR) governor Mugur Isarescu. The annual inflation rate climbed to 4.3% in January 2018 and is expected to get close to 5% in the first half of this year, but the central bank estimates that it will go down in the second half. The finance minister said that the rising inflation was not only due to internal factors but also due to external ones, local Hotnews.ro reported. He added that he would have a talk with the BNR governor in the following period “to see what are the medium- and long-term common actions to put things back into a normal logic.” The current ruling coalition’s decisions to increase salaries in the public sector has been seen as one of the triggers for the increase in prices. BNR has already increased the monetary policy rate twice this year, from 1.75% to 2.25%, to curb the inflation growth. The BNR also warned that the government’s fiscal policies needed to be adjusted as they posed risks to Romania’s economy. editor@romania-insider.com