NBR 'expects yuan' on Romanian market

"China's currency - the yuan - and Chinese banks are welcomed in Romania", Romania’s National Bank Governor Mugur Isărescu said in an interview granted for a Chinese agency Xinhua, on Tuesday, quoted by Agerpres.

"We have been discussing since the early 1990s about opening branches of Chinese banks in Romania."

"I expect this to happen in the future", Mugur Isărescu said.

China's finance authorities have decided to deposit foreign foreign currencies in the National Bank of Romania in the early '90s, when the currency was still in small quantities in Romania, the NBR governor reminded.

Mugur Isărescu added that the request was a sign of lasting friendship between the two countries' national banks.

"It was a gesture of friendship. A friend in need is a friend indeed. I have never forgotten that gesture of friendship", Mugur Isărescu said.

Xinhua notes that Romania intends to adopt the euro by 2015.

China supports the euro

The NBR governor said that the confidence in the euro expressed by the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao during his European tour in June was a support for the single currency.

"China, as a major worldwide economic and trade power, has also become a financial power, by increasing accumulation of currency reserves."

"Therefore, a message of confidence in euro from a financial power will surely help the euro", Mugur Isărescu said.

The NBR governor said that it was possible to avoid future crises if the Chinese currency would play internationally a stronger role.

"When the yuan becomes a currency, we will immediately have it in our treasury", Mugur Isărescu said, while expressing his desire for a closer financial cooperation between China and Romania.

"Our current cooperation can focus on different aspects to solve the international financial crisis", Mugur Isărescu said, welcoming China's constructive role played by its representatives within the International Monetary Fund.

Translated by: Denisse-Meda Bucura
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University