FMI delegation comes again in Romania

From April 24 to May 7 2012, an FMI mission headed by Jeffrey Franks, will come to Bucharest for the fifth evaluation mission of the stand-by agreement, Agerpres informs.

"Mr. Franks will arrive on April 25, he will stay one day after the mission and will leave on May 9. Mr. Franks will be accompanied by Mr. Erik De Vrijer, who will become the head of mission for the next visit. International Monetary Fund visit takes place in the same time with the teams of European Commission and the World Bank.

"The authorities are treating the arrangement as precautionary, which means it does not intend to attract the resources available," said Tonny Lybek, FMI responsible for Bulgaria and Romania, in a statement.

According to Tonny Lybek, the mission representatives will meet with the representatives of political parties, unions, business associations, banks and civil society organizations.

"The mission aims to provide a conclusion at the end of the visit," the International Monetary Fund official said.

On March 22, the FMI Board approved the fourth review of the precautionary agreement with Romania, by providing a new installment of 505 million Euros.With the new installment, Romania has available from the International Monetary Fund about two billion Euros.

The common mission of International Monetary Fund , European Commission and World Bank has also visited Romania in late January - early February 2012 for the fourth assessment of preventive agreement with Romania.

At the end of evaluation, Istvan Szekely EC representative has announced that FMI and the Commission have revised down the growth forecast for Romania this year, at 1.5-2 per cent of the anticipated recession in the Euro area and the deteriorating conditions on the international market.

International Monetary Fund and European Commission representatives said then that all targets were achieved from the agreement of Romania with the international institutions.

The agreement between Romania and the International Monetary Fund began on March 31, 2011 and is one of a preventive, amounting to 3,6 billion Euros, representing about 300 percent of the of Romania’s share that has at FMI.

Privatization timetable agreed with FMI by the Government

Bode Lucian, the Economy Minister, said in early April that the government will reconsidered with FMI the list of state companies to be privatized and publicly traded, and the order in which these companies will be sold depends on the selected intermediaries’ proposals.

FMI agreement provides full sales by the end of April of the company Oltchim and Cupru Min.

The Government has committed to make secondary public offerings, by the same date, for Transelectrica (15percent share) and Transgaz (15percent share), noted Mediafax.

Transelectrica offer was successfully completed in late March and the auction for Cupru Min, conducted in March, will be resumed.

April is the deadline also for selecting the intermediaries to Romanian Post (minority package),Romgaz (15percent share) , Electro Serv (stake) and Tarom (20percent share).

Selection of legal consultants for the 10 percent list of Hidroelectrica (by increasing the capital), the privatization of Electrica Serv, listing 10 percent of Nuclearelectrica (increasing of capital), the privatization of Electrica Furnizare and the privatization of CFR Marfa would also be completed by the end of April.


Translated by Alexandra-Diana Mircea
MTTLC, Bucharest University