Lucian Anghel: "Monetary policy is quite restrictive"

The monetary policy is quite restrictive, and the foreign analysts stating the contrary are not considering the impact of the mandatory minimal reserves, says Lucian Anghel (photo), chief economist of BCR. Moreover, the central bank has also implemented a complementary set of measures, such as raising provisions for foreign currency lending. “The cash level is rather low, a situation that is underlined by the high interest rates on the interbank market,” Anghel says. In fact, the National Bank’s early-May decision to raise the rate by a quarter of a percentage point, up to 9.65% annually, had no visible effects on the interbank market, as the rates were already ranging between 10% and 12% per year, because of the scarcity of cash. The supply and demand of cash looks slightly more balanced at this point, but the rates have not gone below 10% annually, which is above the monetary policy rate. Most foreign analysts feel that inflation pressures are significant, which would entail the need for a steady consolidation of the monetary policy, respectively an increase of the key rate to more than 10% annually. However, foreign analysts have a distorted view of the Romanian economy, for which the lack of information is also to blame, as there is a shortage of available English-language statistical data, Anghel feels. “Locally, we gather data from various sources, sometimes even informal. But foreigners do not have access to such sources and have to work with the information they have.”