Romanian Prime Minister Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu ( in picture) invited the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission to Romania, Jeffrey Franks, and Istvan Székely, the director for Romania with the European Commission, to a meeting in Bucharest between February 21 and 22, to talk about 'current economic issues'. The invitation comes soon after Franks left Romania, where he was on a review mission from January 25 to February 6. The next review mission is scheduled for April this year. Following this mission, Romania received the OK for another tranche of the stand-by loan, the second such agreement with the IMF since the beginning of the financial and economic crisis.

The PM, who was sworn in together with a new cabinet last week, says the letter of intent with the IMF will not be among the discussion topics for the proposed meeting, without giving further details.

Mugur Isarescu, the Governor of the Romanian Central Bank (BNR) recently said Romania shouldn’t sign a new agreement with the IMF, because it would not send a good message.

Romania’s current agreement with the IMF will be completed in 2013. The standby arrangement, worth EUR 3.56 billion, was approved and came into force in March 2011. Jeffrey Franks gave the Romanian authorities a thumbs up during their fourth review. He also said that the Fund will disburse an additional EUR 505 million for the country. “Progress has been good, all quantitative targets were met and we agreed on the necessary policies,” said Franks. He suggested the fund’s standby agreement with Romania would continue unchanged after the previous Prime Minister Emil Boc’s resignation. "I see no reason necessarily for this to have a material effect on the aid agreement. We have every expectation the agreement will continue,” Jeffrey Franks said, quoted by Reuters.

Update: The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission to Romania, Jeffrey Franks, and Istvan Székely, the director for Romania with the European Commission accepted to make a visit to Bucharest on February 21 and 22, to meet the members of the new Government, according to IMF’s Resident Representative in Romania and Bulgaria, Tonny Lybek, quoted by Agerpres.

editor@romania-insider.com