Romanian Central Bank Reserves On Decrease

Romania's central bank hard currency reserves had dropped for the fifth month in a row, to 25.1 billion Euro, from 27.3 billion Euro in October 2008.

The March decrease amounted to 796 million Euro and took place "on the backdrop of the exchange rate between the Euro and the US dollar," a central bank statement said.

The funds entering the central bank vaults totaled 3.5 billion Euro, while the funds exiting amounted to 4.3 billion Euro.

In November, the central bank reserves went down to 27.2 billion Euro; in December, they were at 26.2 billion Euro; in January, they were at 26.0 billion Euro, and in February they were at 25.9 billion Euro.

On Tuesday, the central bank decided to drop the demand for commercial banks to back the deposits passive for longer than two years. This will strip the central bank of more funds, but these will become available to commercial banks to give credits, said Lucian Croitoru, an adviser to the Central Bank governor.