Tanasescu expects another IMF tranche

Romania’s Easter present from the IMF could be the fourth tranche of the stand-by loan, worth about $75 million. This, however, will not happen unless the Fund’s Board, scheduled to meet on April 25, decides that the Romanian authorities have indeed met their pledges. Finance minister Mihai Tanasescu on Saturday met with IMF’s European Department Director Michael Deppler. “Our talks revealed Romania has exemplarily kept its commitments to the IMF and there are no problems about endorsing the release of the fourth tranche. For the first time in 25 years we are very close to seeing an agreement with the IMF through,” Tanasescu told Mediafax. The stand-by agreement with the IMF was signed in October 2001 and is worth 300 million SDRs. The first tranche was released upon signing and the next two tranches were released in one batch last September. The Finance minister added Romania stood chances of getting the second tranche of the PSAL II agreement signed with the World Bank, worth $169.9 million, in December. Romania had previously got the first tranche of PSAL II, worth $169.9 million, in mid October last year. ZF