Romania hasn’t met the end-September performance criteria on general government arrears and it will ask the International Monetary Fund for a new waiver of non-observance, IMF mission chief Jeffrey Franks said Friday.  This will be the sixth waiver of non-observance on government arrears since Romania signed a EUR 13 billion loan agreement with the IMF in 2009.  The IMF is likely to ask the Romanian government to pay at least part of its arrears to companies before disbursing a new installment of its loan in December, people familiar with the matter told Mediafax newswire earlier Friday.

End-June, the Romanian government's arrears stood at RON 2 billion, double the half-year target agreed with the IMF. The country must bring its government arrears down to RON 480 million by year-end and eliminate them altogether by the end of the IMF program in 2011.

Mediafax