PM Orban says Romania isn't in situation of needing IMF loan

Prime Minister Ludovic Orban said on Monday that Romania is not yet in a situation where it would need an IMF loan in its perspective. 

"We are not yet in such a situation [of needing an agreement with the IMF - e.n.]. In general you need an agreement with the IMF when you don't have the capacity of finding financial resources to support deficits. We are not in such a situation. Here I actually want to give confidence also to investors, I want to give confidence to people, too. Sure, a rather large imbalance was created, but we must take gradual measures to rebalance, because it's no good to determine a very large contraction, because a very large contraction that would be large enough to lead us faster under 3 pct budget deficit, which is the deficit admitted under the Treaty of the European Union, a too fast contraction may have negative effects on economic growth, on people's willingness to consume, to lend," Orban told public broadcaster TVR1. 

He added that in parallel "the center of gravity must be moved", and the National Liberal Party (PNL) has taken a step in this sense when setting the minimum wage. 

"The PSD [Social Democratic Party] promised, before leaving, it would increase [the minimum wage - ed.n.] by 100 lei. We tried to introduce an objective criteria that would underpin the increase of the minimum wage. (...) Increasing the minimum wage must take into account several factors, you can't increase it as you see fit. We tried to tie the increase in the minimum wage to some objective economic indicators - inflation rate, productivity index and economic growth," he mentioned.