Paying off Government debt - ‘Romania’s top priority’

Mihai Tănăsescu, Romania’s representative to the IMF stated in an interview to Alexandra
Andon from Radio România Actualităţi that the demands the government has accepted have a downside as well, especially when it comes to paying off government debt to companies, ‘which should have been down, but hasn’t’.

Mihai Tănăsescu said he hoped that the new arrangement, which is to start late March, would make state companies more efficient, by better evaluating income and spending.

Romania’s representative to the IMF stated that he has decided with the authorities that a strategy to eliminate debt in the next years should be drafted in three months’ time.

‘We are going to work with the authorities in Bucharest and specialists from the World Bank, for each and every company, be it under the Ministry of Transport or the Ministry of Industry.’

‘It is obvious that each company is to be treated differently, the problems are different, so the structural reform process in these companies will gradually diminish these arrears’, Mihai Tănăsescu stated.

This project was not imposed by international bodies

He stated that the restructuring program was not a condition set by the IMF or the EC, but is the vision of authorities in Bucharest for the next years.

Mihai Tănăsescu also added that the measures the authorities will have to implement will bring better public services, but financial discipline as well.

‘It is clear that the reforms will not end in two years, but they will be set on the right track, one that will allow for continuity, one that will take us to better public services.’

‘Although, in these two years, an average period of time, companies with problems will try to get used to the new type of management, a new type of action, a new way to relate with the public through the services they offer’, Mihai Tănăsescu also said.

The IMF mission in Romania, the World Bank and the European Commission has concluded in its evaluation that the economy ‘seems to be recovering’, but measures such as European fund absorption or paying off arrears have to be taken.

Romanian President Traian Băsescu stated that the Romanian authorities will not resort to the last tranche of the loan from the IMF, and the next agreement is only a precautionary one.

Translated by: Gabriela Lungu

MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University