An IMF mission headed by Jeffrey Franks will be in Romania during 20-27 January to discuss instalments three and four, an IMF communiqué indicates. The total amount of the two instalments is 2.3 billion euros.

"During January 20-27, an IMF mission led by Jeffrey Franks will visit Bucharest to discuss the revision of the second and the third IMF, European Commission (EC), World Bank and other international financial institutions' agreement. The mission will meet Public Finance Ministry and Romanian National Bank representatives and will work closely with EC and World Bank missions. The IMF will make decisions public at the end of its visit", said Tonny Lybek, regional representative for Romania.

According to him, the IMF's authorisation of the two revision's will lead to the release of the third and fourth stand-by loan instalments, worth of around 1.5 billion euros and 800 million euros, respectively.

The IMF loaned Romania the first two instalments so far, namely 6.57 billion euros. The IMF mission which visited Bucharest over October 28 - November 9 for the second stand-by agreement revision decided that Romania did not fulfil all conditions to receive the third instalment. This should have been sent to Romania by mid-December, but it was postponed until a new government was formed a d the 2010 budget adopted