Franks, IMF: The big disappointment is the economy has not returned to growth

The IMF’s big disappointment after two years of arrangement with Romania is that the economy has yet to return to growth, says Jeffrey Franks, the head of the mission negotiating and managing the Fund’s relationship with Bucharest.
“The absence of economic growth is the big disappointment now that we are nearing the end of this arrangement. It is very true that the pace of reforms could have been much faster, but even so, very significant adjustments have been made, the right policies have been implemented and there has been a return to the path of fiscal discipline,” Franks told ZF yesterday.
This is the first time that a high official involved in this arrangement admits the big failure of the arrangement to pull Romania out of the crisis.
The IMF had the issue of economic growth on its agenda throughout the whole of last year and was very keen to take credit for Romania’s return to growth, hoping it would happen as early as in 2010.
According to official sources, over the course of last year’s negotiations, especially during the summer round ahead of the VAT hike and the salary cuts, the IMF argued in favour of variants that would see the Romanian economy return to growth, at odds with the position of the NBR (Romanian central bank), which argued and still does that GDP growth should not be resumed until reforms are more advanced and the economy is restructured.
One thing is certain, though, the arrangement with the IMF, which accounts for the bulk of the huge 20 billion-euro loan taken out by Romania in 2009, has failed to pull the country out of recession. So, one can wonder why this gigantic arrangement was necessary, given that the 10 billion-euro injection received in 2009 and the 7 billion-euro one received in 2010 did not prevent the economy from plummeting by an overall 10%.
What is, however, the big achievement of the IMF arrangement, which saw Romania take on such a debt?
“There has been no banking crisis in Romania thanks to firm action by the banks and the NBR,” says Franks, suggesting there was a real danger of this happening.