The Targets of Mugur Isarescu

The Council of Administration of the Romanian National Bank is faced with a huge responsibility, stated yesterday Mugur Isarescu, the National Bank Governor. He issued a press release to the media in which he presents the targets the central bank had for the near future.
Isarescu said the 9% inflation target will be met in 2004, while having a 6% growth rate. The hard currency reserves of the National Bank reached 10 billion euros, thus increasing the financial reliability for the country to our foreign partners. In the past few years, commercial banks cleaned up their non-performing credits, their losses, thus readying the banking system for the European Union integration, a healthy growth of crediting and improving the financial intermediary operations.
"The new Council of Administration is faced with the difficult task of supervising the transition to the "heavy" leu [cutting four zeros from prices] starting with July 1, 2005. We get ready for this moment with maximum intensity. Bringing down the inflation is the second biggest target and this will keep down not only the consumer prices but also a more coherent macro economic environment. The final target for this decade is to reach an annual inflation around 2 to 3 percent," said Isarescu.
"We also get ready for reaching full convertibility of the leu which will represent a very important signal for the foreign investors. As for the interest rates on the domestic markets, these will go down because of the appreciation of the domestic currency," said Isarescu.
To reach these targets it will be needed "a good cooperation with the Ministry of Finance. We will also need the support of the Parliament and of its Committees for budget, finance and banking," Isarescu concluded.