Romania’s new Cabinet will stand by commitments to IMF and EC, says new PM

Romania’s new Government will continue former Cabinet’s commitments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Commission (EC), the Romanian Prime Minister, Mihai Razvan Ungureanu, told officials from the two financial institutions today (February 22).

The Prime Minister also introduced the new Finance (Bogdan Dragoi), Economy (Lucian Bode), Transport (Alexandru Nazare) and Justice (Catalin Predoiu) ministers to the IMF and EC members. The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission to Romania, Jeffrey Franks, and Istvan Székely, the director for Romania with the European Commission, made a visit to Bucharest on February 21 and 22, to meet the members of the new Government. They were invited by Mihai Razvan Ungureanu to talk about ‘current economic issues’, without including the country’s letter of intent with the IMF. The invitation came soon after Franks left Romania, where he was on a review mission from January 25 to February 6. The next review mission is scheduled for April this year. Following this mission, Romania received the OK for another tranche of the stand-by loan, the second such agreement with the IMF since the beginning of the financial and economic crisis. Romania’s current agreement with the IMF will be completed in 2013. During the fourth review, Jeffrey Franks suggested the fund’s standby agreement with Romania would continue unchanged after the previous Prime Minister Emil Boc’s resignation. “I see no reason necessarily for this to have a material effect on the aid agreement. We have every expectation the agreement will continue,” he said, quoted by Reuters. Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com