Romania could receive the third and fourth installments of the IMF loan simultaneously

The International Monetary Fund could disburse the third and fourth installments of the loan next year, if the authorities request it and if the political uncertainty persists, the IMF official for Romania and Bulgaria, Tonny Lybek said.

"The delayed adoption of a credible budget may cause Romania to receive the third and fourth tranche together, in mid-March 2010", Tonny Lybek said, adding that the next appraisal of the Fund concerning the delivery of the fourth installment in March, was scheduled for the beginning of January-early February anyway.

By cumulating the two tranches, the IMF would disburse around 2.35 billion Euros to Romania.

However, the IMF official said that the Government needs financing in the interim, because the delayed disbursement of the third tranche due to the ongoing domestic political disagreements, involves additional costs.

"The interest rate for the loan from the IMF, the interest rate is around 3.5%. The interest for the issue of Euro-denominated government bonds on the domestic market was 5.25%", Mr. Lybek said.

A few weeks ago, the head of the IMF mission, Jeffrey Franks, made a similar statement.

"The agreements provides that the evaluations that are part of the agreement need to take place every three months. The evaluation for the third tranche was initially scheduled for the beginning of January end of February 2010".

În case the political situation does not get solved earlier, we could combine the revisions in order to allow Romania to draw two tranches at once," said Franks.

The third installment was initially scheduled for mid- December 2009, but due to the absence of a fully powered government, the IMF postponed the decision, claiming it was unlikely there would be a disbursement of funds this year.

Concerning the fourth installment, it had initially been scheduled for March 15th, 2010 subject to Romania"s performance at the end of 2009, and to the IMF report.

Romania has entered a two-year agreement with the IMF, for the amount of 12.95 billion Euros, with the combined loans taken out from the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, the World Bank and the EBRD reaching a total of 19.95 billion Euros.