Romania Economy minister Varujan Vosganian declared on Thursday that the inflation rate might reach 6% by the end of the year. Vosganian added that the ministry forecast 3.8% initially but the inflation rate would almost double, Romanian monitoring agency Rador informs.

Vosganian made the statement shortly after trade unions announced protests in order to obtain an increase of the average minimum salary from 500 Ron to 540 Ron. Vosganian declared that Romania's National Bank states quite clearly that Romania exceeded its inflation target.

Romania's National Bank inflation target for 2008 stood at 3.8% initially and for 2009 was of 3.5%. However, the Bank revised these estimations, and now, for 2008 it reached 6%.