Romania's Central Bank Governor Mugur Isarescu: The 2009 economic growth forecast drops below 5.5 percent

During a press conference on Monday, National Bank of Romania (NBR) Governor Mugur Isarescu made a briefing of the quarterly report. Thus, the governor stated that inflation rate decreased in the third quarter of the year -- mainly due to the country’s agricultural sector good outcome this summer.

Mr. Isarescu said that there is no clear projection yet regarding the policies to be implemented by the next government to cut spending. For the next year annual inflation, Romania’s central bank admits it has a poor estimation (due to the global volatility). Mr. Isarescu said that the 2009 yoy inflation could be anywhere from 1 percent up to more than 5 percent. The factors to influence inflation will be: the policies adopted by the future government, volatility of foods’ prices, and the exchange rate.

Earlier, this morning, Romaia’s central bank made public (on its website) the ‘NBR's International Reserves in October 2008’:

At end-October 2008, foreign exchange reserves of the National Bank of Romania stood at EUR 27,318 million, compared to 26,021 at end-September 2008.

The EUR 1,297 million increase recorded in the reported month owed to the following:

• EUR 4,402 million worth of inflows representing the change in the foreign-exchange reserve requirements of credit institutions, the funds deposited in the account of the European Commission, transactions in the interbank market, income from the management of foreign reserves, a.s.o.;
• EUR 3,105 million worth of outflows consisting in the change in foreign-exchange reserve requirements of credit institutions, transactions in the interbank market, principal repayments and interest payments on public and publicly guaranteed external debt, a.s.o.

Since the foreign reserves consist of assets denominated in euro, US Dollars and other currencies, the important changes of the exchange rates of these currencies in the international markets have influenced both the inflows and the outflows.

The gold stock held steady at 103.7 tonnes. However, following the developments in the world price of gold, its value amounted to EUR 1,908 million.

The international reserves of Romania (foreign currencies and gold) at October 31st, 2008 stood at EUR 29,226 million, compared to EUR 28,102 million at September 30th, 2008.

In November 2008, payments due on public and publicly guaranteed external debt amount to EUR 57 million.