The money will be disbursed on February 21st the latest, Romania’s representative to the IMF, Mihai Tanasescu, said. Two payments are to be made, worth a total of 2.3 billion Euro, from the 20-billion Euro loan taken out by Romanian from the IMF, the World Bank and the European Commission. The money is needed for nursing the country’s economy back to health, after being hit hard by the world economic crisis. The political instability in Romania over the past two months of 2009 was the main cause for the delay in the third payment that should have reached Bucharest in December.

The endorsement of the 2010 state budget and the stabilization of the political situation have led to the resumption of talks between IMF representatives and Romanian authorities. JURNALUL NATIONAL also quotes Mihai Tanasescu as saying that ‘the Government should not impose new taxes and duties this year, but rather focus on cutting expenses.’ The same paper carries a forecast of the Coface rating agency, according to which Romania’s economy will go up by over 0.5% this year, against the background of economic recovery in European countries and the US, while inflation will drop from 4.8% in 2009 to 4% in 2010. JURNALUL NATIONAL also reports that analysts are expecting the negative current account balance to stand at 6% of the GDP, up from 5.6% in 2009, and an increase in the public debt.

Romania’s debt is currently ‘under control’, but its future evolution continues to be uncertain, Tanasescu said, quoted by the daily paper Gandul. He gave the example of Greece, threatened by bankruptcy because of a huge budget deficit of almost 13% of the GDP in 2009. Romania’s budget deficit last year was 7.3% of the GDP while its level this year is estimated at 5,9% of the GDP. Tanasescu believes that the most important thing at the moment is to pay more attention to debt management, and to figure out how to increase debt without turning it into a burden, in the upcoming period.