THE "BUSINESS BEHAVIOR IN TIMES OF CRISIS" CONFERENCE ORGANIZED BY THE BURSA NEWSPAPER NBR Governor Mugur Isărescu: Deficits will persist, because we are not saving enough

The crisis - the European context and the newly adopted solutions for rescuing Greece, the consequences which the latter will have for the banking system as well as the solutions which could be adopted to allow Romania to more easily weather the new wave of the recession - those were the main issues discussed by the attendees of the "Business Behavior In Times Of Crisis" conference, organized by the BURSA newspaper on Friday, with the help of the National Bank of Romania (NBR).

In its opening speech, NBR governor BNR Mugur Isărescu discussed the need for competitiveness and performance, and stressed the fact that Romania needs to become competitive and to perform: "We need to have an adequate macroeconomic environment and stable institutions - these are necessary conditions to reach competitiveness, but they are not enough. We need to teach companies the meaning of the word < performance >".

The NBR governor claims that Romania isn"t saving enough, and said for that reason, the deficits will still be present in the near future. "That is why", Mugur Isărescu says, "we need to keep deficits at a reasonable level".

Public finance minister Gheorghe Ialomiţianu said that Romania can not lower taxes and increase expenses at the same time, because such a measure "would mean having Romania become bankrupt".

Romania was caught unprepared when the effects of the world economic crisis began to appear, the official of the Ministry of Public Finances said, and he added that in 2009 Romania had a deficit of over 5.4% of the GDP, the current expenditure system was unsustainable, we were facing macroeconomic imbalances, and companies weren"t restructured. According to him, Romania had to ensure the sustainability of public finances, to avoid going into default, which is why it resorted to the agreement with the IMF.