FinMin Citu: I guarantee we will not ask IMF for help in 2020

Romania will not ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for help in 2020, Minister of Public Finance Florin Citu stated on Monday.

"We will not go to the IMF. We have managed to finance the deficit, which is a first for Romania in the past 30 years, and for many other of the world economies, without asking for help. I guarantee that we will not go to IMF for help," Citu told B1 TV private television broadcaster.

The head of Finance also answered to a series of accusations regarding the big loans that the Ministry has contracted and underscored that there have also been savings made where possible.

"I have explained how this money was used every month. Romania started this year with an inherited deficit, in the context in which the pensions, salaries and allowances increase in the beginning of the year, which are expenditures that do not return to the government immediately. At the same time, we spent on investments. In the first 6 months we invested 16 million lei. So, on the one hand, we had this deficit at the beginning of the year and, on the other hand, we had a crisis in March, we had a state of emergency. And things were getting slightly worse even before, which means that we are going to have smaller revenues to the state budget. And another increase in the deficit is to be expected from here. These loans only cover the difference between what we collect and what we spend. And I need you to tell you that we spent less than estimated. We cut down expenditures and we saved as much as we could, we did not waste the public money," said the Minister.

In respect to the collection of taxes to the state budget, the head of Finance said things are much better than expected.

"Things are better than we expected them to be in terms of the tax collection, considering the situation Romania, and the entire global economy, is facing right now. (...) The private economy reacted very well to the measures we took, especially to those benefits we provided to the companies that managed to pay their taxes in due time. The large companies also paid their debts, so the private environment did well. And I mean now the same operators that were fair in paying their debts even before the crisis. For it's true that there were also economic operators that were less prepared to face this crisis. And the government needed to take some measures to help them during this time, and they did keep the jobs, they paid their contributions, there were no surprises," said Citu.