Adrian Vasilescu: BNR's optimism is natural. The Finance Ministry managed to get a loan to pay its debts and Romania is not incapable of paying back

Luni, 15 iunie 2009, 9:12 English | Politics

The Central Bank (BNR) governor's councillor Adrian Vasilescu declared in an interview for Romanian TV channel Realitatea TV that the optimism showed by BNR was natural, since the bank always spoke about the problems it had dealt with. The banks lent the Ministry of Finance and Romania is not in the position of not being able to pay back.

In this Sunday's Governmental session incumbent president Traian Basescu declared that BNR's optimism is not supported, since the second 2009 trimester will see a further GDP contraction, meaning Romania will find itself in recession and the Executive will have to find ways to pay the salaries.

Adrian Vasilescu said the minimum compulsory deposit is a figure decided by an agreement with the IMF. One billion (lei) has already been sent from BNR's deposit toward the commercial banks, and there is more to follow next month.

BNR shrank the interest twice this year and Vasilescu foresee amore contraction, "considering the inflation rate is close to 0 and there will probably be many months ahead with a similar inflation. Thus, we've got a very serious problem: the commercial banks have a high interest rate, 12-14%, much more over BNR's deposits", Vasilescu added.