Fitch ups Romaniasaa‚¬a„¢s rating to stable

Rating agency Fitch has improved Romania’s rating from negative to stable and confirmed the country’s rating for long-term debt in foreign and local currencies at BB plus and BBB minus. “The improvement in external financial and economic conditions, sharper than expected narrowing of the 2009 current account deficit, passing of immediate election-related risk, adoption of the 2010 budget and expected normalization of relations with the IMF have eased downward pressures on Romania’s sovereign ratings,” said David Heslam, director in Fitch’s Sovereign Group.

Romania’s economy experienced a sharp adjustment last year. Fitch estimates that real GDP fell by 6.9 percent in 2009, driven by falling private domestic demand. But, encouragingly, this has lessened Romania’s demand for imports and supported a sharper-than-expected adjustment of the country’s current account deficit, according to Fitch Ratings.

The agency has also revised the ratings of four banks active locally – BCR, BRD-SocGen, UniCredit Tiriac and Banca Romaneasca – from negative to stable, it has announced. The decision to revise the lenders’ ratings was prompted by the institutional support offered to those banks by their mother groups.

Corina Saceanu

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