After Hungary decided to no longer draw money as part of its
agreement with the IMF in order to shake its image as a country in
need of financial aid, the question arises whether Romania can take
a similar step or whether it is too early for that.
The Government can ask for a shift to a precautionary
agreement, under which Romania would have to continue the reforms
it committed to, but no longer borrow money.
Both the Finance minister, Sebastian Vladescu, and Romania’s
representative to the IMF say such talks are as yet premature, at
least until the release of the next two 2.3 billion-euro tranches,
set to take place at the end of February.
“A prospective decision to switch to a precautionary agreement
would be a positive signal, but first we have to see how the budget
execution goes, if the deficit is reduced in line with budget
provisions, what the future financing resources will be, what
inflows of cash we can count on,” Mihai Tanasescu, representative
of Romania to the IMF commented for ZF. Bank analysts agree that
Romania could manage without IMF money in the second half of the
year, but believe politicians could lose interest in conducting
reforms once the conditionalities of the IMF for releasing the last
few tranches of the loan are gone.

Subiecte #IMF money#romania