Economic Overview - Romania - June 2009
 |
3 August 2009 |
 |
RAIFFEISEN BANK S.A. |
Adresa
Piaţa Charles de Gaulle, Nr. 15
011857 Bucureşti, Sector 1
Telefon
+40-21-306.10.00
+40-21-306.15.54
Fax
+40-21-230.07.00
Website
www.raiffeisen.ro
Highlights
-
On 30 June, the NBR took firm steps to ease its monetary policy stance: it cut the key rate by 50bp to 9%, and it reduced banks’ minimum reserve requirements from 18% to 15% for lei and from 40% to 35% for foreign currencies (effective from 24 July). We expect the NBR to cut further the monetary policy rate towards 8% by the end of the year.
-
Finance minister said that based on preliminary data the consolidated budget deficit stood at 2.7% of the projected GDP at the end of June. So, the budget deficit was below the target agreed recently with the International Monetary Fund. However, decline in public revenues is much larger than initially expected and the risks for a higher than expected budget deficit at the end of year have increased substantially.
-
The leu depreciated slightly in June after the investor’s sentiment on the international and regional markets deteriorated. In June, the EUR/RON exchange rate climbed from 4.18 at the beginning of the month to a maximum of 4.24. However, the leu recovered a part of the losses at the beginning of July when the EUR/RON exchange rate fell again below 4.20.
