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Tuesday, October 2, 2007

IMF Sees "Signs of Overheating" in Romania

According to Bloomberg the International Monetary Fund's mission chief in Romania, Albert Jaeger, has just said in Bucharest Romania's economy risks overheating:

"We have seen signs of overheating in the economy, particularly in the job market"


If you have been following what I have been arguing on this blog, and in particular in this post, then you will already be aware that this news comes as no great surprise to me.

Meantime, not everything is bad news in Romania at the moment. The leu, for example has to some extent reversed its recent slide.

This morning the leu rose 0.2 percent to 3.3521 per euro at 11:45 a.m. in Bucharest. This was up 2.4 percent from an eight-month low hit on Sept. 20.

The leu has in fact been the second-best performing currency against the euro in Europe and Africa today after the Romanian Finance Ministry said it would offer 1.9 billion leu ($803 million) worth of treasury bills and 2.3 billion of government bonds in the fourth quarter, up from sales worth 1.3 billion leu in the previous three months.

``Prospects of a fourfold increase in Romanian T-bills and sovereign bonds issuance in the fourth quarter should help the leu to pursue its recovery, although short term politics and global markets can act as an hindrance,'' BNP Paribas SA said in a research note published today.

Recovery, or temporary blip on the long road down? The next few weeks will surely give us the answer. Of course having the IMF mission detecting signs of overheating will hardly be good for the currency.

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