IMF representative to Bucharest: the Fund will negatively modify Romania's economic forecasts because the situation is worse

Vineri, 17 iulie 2009, 16:14 English | Business

The IMF will negatively reconsider Romania's economic status for 2009 from -4.1% agreed on March because the situation is worse, IMF Romania and Bulgaria representative Tonny Lybek declared, quoted by Romanian news agency NewsIn informs. IMF official added that if the executive will fail to respect the budgetary deficit threshold set in the IMF and EC loan, the IMF will not release the next money installment.

Lybek avoided any clear estimation and resumed at saying that the IMF will officialy present on August 10 final data regarding Romania's economic perspective. Finance minister Gheorghe Pogea declared two days ago that Romania's economy might contract by 6.5 to 7.1% compared to the numbers initially put forward by the executive, of 4%.

On the other hand, the IMF representative declared that if Romanian authorities will fail to respect the budgetary deficit threshold set at the time of the agreement due to internal decisions, the IMF might not release the next installment.

He explained that, at the moment, preliminary IMF data shows that the government respected the set budgetary deficit for the first half of the year, but it still has plenty of things to do.