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National chairman of the National Liberal Party (PNL) Florin Citu said on Thursday that when a minister mentions the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or recession, it means that they have already been discussed, thus alluding to recent statements by Finance Minister Adrian Caciu.
"As for the remarks on the IMF, recession, interest rates, inflation, I would like to remind you that I have never mentioned the IMF or recession. Any economist, any person working in the financial market knows very well that when a minister mentions the IMF or recession it means that the IMF and the recession have already been discussed by the ministry with international organisations. That is why I never said that, because it is a worrying signal from a minister to mention such things in public. It is customarily when you already talk about recession, for example in the financial market, that the understanding is that there is already a recession. I have not seen the statement yet, but I want to believe that no statement has been made from such an important ministry and that the minister has not mentioned the two things, the IMF and the recession," Citu told a news conference at the PNL headquarters.
He added that he was worried about "the track Romania is following."
"Inflation is well above the target set by the Central Bank - it is what the Central Bank says not me - 8.2% inflation at the end of last year. An inflation rate that I believe will further increase moving forward and that could reach 10% is a very, very high inflation rate. (...)," said the former prime minister.
Citu underscored the need for an economic perspective.
He said that if the national government deficit widened by two to three percentage points in December, Romania would enter a new paradigm, one in which government spending is used to grow the economy, not investment or revenues.
On Thursday, Finance Minister Caciu said: "This year, we spend more on interest, because it is due on borrowed capital, and in the last two years Romania has borrowed 57 billion euros; when you have a higher volume of loans you will obviously have a higher interest rate to pay."
According to him, Romania is not at a risk of a recession and not in a position to seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund, Agerpres informs.
