Government says it has fulfilled IMF conditions, wants new part of the loan

Newsroom 05/01/2011 | 10:44

The government has sent a letter to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which says that Romania has fulfilled all the conditions necessary for a new part of the agreed loan to be released.

The letter says that Romania ended 2010 with a deficit of 6.6 percent of the GDP, with a number of 1.27 million public workers and the arrears below the agreed limits.

For this year, the government has committed to reduce the budgetary deficit to 4.4 percent of the GDP. The GDP was estimated in 2010 in excess of EUR 119.87 billion.

The agreement with the IMF stipulated that the maximum level of the arrears should not surpass RON 250 million at the end of November. “The government has fulfilled this target for the release of the next IMF loan since at the end of November the level of the arrears was RON 248 million,” said Finance Minister Gheorghe Ialomitianu, quoted by Mediafax newswire.

Romania signed an agreement for external financing with the IMF, the European Union and other international financial institutions. The total sum agreed upon is approximately EUR 20 million. So far, Romania has received loans in value of EUR 11.27 billion from the IMF and EUR 3.65 billion from the European Commission.