BNR Governor Isarescu, still optimistic about GDP and inflation prospectsUpdated: 08-03-2010 | Financial and Banking

Governor of the National Bank of Romania (BNR) Mugur Isarescu is still optimistic about the future developments in Romania's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and inflation, and he is critical of what he called projecting becoming a national pastime with specialists. 'I want to be very clear that I am optimistic,' Isarescu said on Thursday. He added that the debates on the economic and financial state of Romania are useful. 'Romania needs serious debates on economic and financial matters,' Isarescu told the opening of a seminar on Romania's financial and economic prospects.

'Guesstimation about economic growth has turned into some kind of a national pastime. I expect today's seminar to discuss mainly the economic and financial fundamentals and based on this we will seek to provide a vision of Romania's economic prospects. It is highly important that the economic and financial discussions be serious, because the economic and financial shape of Romania is serious. Romania is in no crisis, but serious discussions are still needed,' said Isarescu.

'We are witnessing experimentation in very generous Government deficits and pension funds as well as administrative structures far too extended by comparison, some hundreds of kilometers away from Romania, and these can lead to dramatic situations; that is why serious approaches are needed,' Isarescu said in relation to the latest developments in Greece.

Budget revenues cannot exceed 32 pct of the GDP

A budget deficit worth 35 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), as it has been talked in Romania about is a 'bashing lie', I'm sorry to say it, the budget revenues could only attain merely 30-31 percent of the GDP, on Thursday said the National Bank of Romania (BNR) governor Mugur Isarescu, at a seminar on macro-economy. '30 - 31 percent of the GDP revenues to the state budget it is the maximum obtainable. This is the money we could administrate. We share what we've got', the central bank's governor underlined.Should the real value of the salary goes down, in an economy still not recovering, the pensions will naturally go down as well. Romania as it is made could not draw out from taxation more than 32 percent of the GDP, Isarescu explained. 'I don't see the Romanian economy surfacing from recession, by creating revenues exclusively for the pensions' payment', the BNR governor said, quoted by Agerpres.