Euro Reached 35,515 Lei

The European currency rate reached yesterday the value recorded in March 2003: 35,515 lei. The euro decrease surprised the population: while some rushed to exchange their savings, others bought hoping that euro would reach again 38,000 lei.

CONFUSION. The exchange offices in Bucharest were applying the rates for euro depending on the clients’ demand yesterday afternoon.

The exchange rate of the European currency dropped to 35,515 lei yesterday. At the end of March 2003 the rate was higher. The exchange rate that NBR (the National Bank of Romania) published is 508 units lower than the rate on Monday. Moreover, NBR announced a 27,385 lei exchange rate for the US dollar, the lowest since March 2001. Yesterday, the American currency decreased 617 lei. Since the beginning of this year, euro decreased by 10.45% and by 13% compared to the14th of February 2004. In the last year, the US dollar decreased by 13.82%, and by 5.7% since the 1st of January 2005.

QUOTATIONS. At the opening of the inter-banking meeting, the euro has been involved in transactions for 36,100 lei, but started to decrease immediately, based on the exchange orders. "The quotation of 36,000 lei per euro didn’t represent a resistance threshold, and the sales seemed to increase after it got under this value", the dealer of a commercial bank stated. The European currency has reaches a minimum of the day of 35,370 - 35,420 lei.

PRIVATE MARKET. The rates communicated by the national central bank generated all kinds of opinions from the owners of the exchange offices. There were some wanting to sell as many euros as possible, and others do not sell expecting the central bank to intervene and set the euro rate at 38,500 lei - 39,000 lei. "I want to sell as many foreign currency as possible, especially euro. The latest sales didn’t suffer any spectacular changes. Even though we have to sell, we don’t quite have buyers", Daniel Gadescu, exchange office owner, said. In the same time, other owners only buy and don’t sell, gathering a greater amount of foreign currency to sell it later for a higher price.

COURAGEOUS. "There are many people who came and bought a lot of euros, taking advantage of our low selling price - 35,900 lei. We don’t apply the strategy of not buying or selling, like some other houses do", Ramona, the salesperson at the Travelex exchange office, said. The price varies at the exchange offices. Therefore, the euro was bought for 35,100 - 35,700 lei and sold for 35,000 - 36,240 lei, and the US dollar can be bought for 27,200 - 27,750 lei and sold for 28,180 - 28,600 lei.

LOSSES

Most of all, the foreign currency variations affected the incomes of the exporters. They lost, in January only, approximately 200 million euros, according to the data from the National Association of the Exporters and Importers. The hotel owners aren’t doing any better. Their incomes decreased by 20% compared to October. The hotels dealt most of their contracts with the internal and external tourism agencies, as well as with their corporate clients, for an average rate of 41,000 lei. On the other hand, the incomes in lei for the hotels, compared to the price lists edited or dealt in euro, progressively diminished, in accordance to the decrease of the European currency rate from approximately 41,000 lei to less than 36,000 lei.