The delay in IMF's approving the accord with Romania is "quite normal," since our country must prove now to international financial institutions that it can be ruled and that it has institutions able of managing both a normal and a crisis situation, economic analysts maintain.
"One might say that a financial 'Costesti' is developing this week in Romania," Dragos Neacsu, chairman of Raiffeisen Securities, told Ziarul Financiar. He says that the unraveling of the Romanian financial system through manoeuvres and battlefield scenarios "would send us many years backward."
Anyway, Romanian authorities have requested IMF's management that the extension of the stand-by loan agreement (which expired yesterday) be prolonged by one week. During this period, a set of measures meant to regulate the situation created on the Romanian financial market would be elaborated.
"This respite will give Romanian authorities time to prepare an addendum related to decisions to be made to the end of avoiding the situation that has lately characterised the capital market," Conny Lotz, IMF's spokesperson, yesterday told a press conference.
She added that the Fund voiced in front of Romanian authorities "concerns related to the evolution of the financial market" and urged them to identify and put into practice, as soon as possible, adequate measures meant to tighten surveillance and regulation of activities developed by non-banking financial institutions.
"The IMF wants to see in our case that institutions regulating the financial market know how to handle a certain situation and can offer viable solutions and coherent answers," Neacsu said.
Sebastian Vladescu, a secretary of state with the Finance Ministry, yesterday stated that the respective measures would involve mutual funds, commercial banks, people's banks and competence of the National Securities Commission (CNVM). The measures are aimed at persuading IMF officials that the Romanian banking system has gone back to normal.
