An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission, led by Jan Kees Martijn, visited Bucharest from January 29 to February 1 as part of its regular engagement with the Romanian authorities and other stakeholders.
Romania has been a member of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since 1972. Starting with February 2, 2016, Romania's quota equals SDR 1,811.4 million (0.38 percent of total quota). Romania's voting power in the IMF is 19,573 votes or 0.39 percent of total. Within the IMF, Romania is part of a constituency including Armenia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Croatia, Georgia, Israel, Luxemburg, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, Ukraine and, from October 16, 2020, Andorra.
Romania's Governor at the IMF is the Governor of the National Bank of Romania, while the Alternate Governor is the Minister of Finance.
On March 25, 1998, Romania has accepted the obligations under Article VIII of the IMF's Articles of Agreement on current account convertibility, thereby committing itself neither to impose restrictions on payments and transfers pertaining to current international transactions, nor to engage in discriminatory foreign exchange arrangements or multiple foreign exchange practices, without the IMF's approval/consultation. (Press Release: "Romania Accepts Article VIII Obligations").
The financial assistance granted by the IMF took the form of ten Stand-by Arrangements that have been approved since 1991. Also in the early ‘90s, three special loans were carried out within the framework of financing facilities. From the last three Stand-by Arrangements approved by the IMF in 2009, 2011 and 2013, Romania has made withdrawals in the amount of SDR 10.57 billion1 (about 11.9 billion euro) only from the one approved in 2009. The Stand-by Arrangements approved in 2011 and 2013 were treated as precautionary, as Romanian authorities didn’t make any withdrawals from the approved amounts (of approximately 3.5 billion euros in 2011 and 1.98 billion euros in 2013).
As a member country, Romania has agreed to provide the IMF with data on its economy and to participate in annual consultations with the IMF, as required by Article IV of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement; following these consultations, the IMF staff prepare a country report.
An IMF team visited Romania during September 29 – october 4, 2023 to assess the macroeconomic developments and to discuss with the Romanian authorities under the procedure of Article IV Consultations. The results of the discussions are presented in the IMF Report.
More details regarding consultations with member states in compliance with the provisions of Article IV of the IMF's Articles of Agreement can be found here.
At present, Romania’s cumulative allocations amount to SDR 2.720,9 million. On August 23, 2021, the new general allocation of SDRs entered into force following the approval by the IMF`s Board of Governors on August 2, 2021. The related amount for Romania in this operation was 1,736.1 million SDRs.
According to the IMF’s Articles of Agreement, the SDR allocations are not interest bearing as long as the holdings of SDRs (SDR account balance) equal the allocation.
As concerns the policies for assessing the extent to which international standards are adopted in the fields relevant for the IMF's activity, Romania participated in ROSC - Data Module (report on compliance with standards and codes), whereby the IMF experts make an assessment of the Romanian practices concerning the Special Data Dissemination Standard – SDDS (Romania joined this system in November 2019).
The Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) is a comprehensive and in-depth assessment of a country’s financial sector. The FSAP is jointly conducted by the IMF and the World Bank in developing economies and emerging markets, and by the IMF alone in advanced economies. The FSAP includes two major components: a financial stability assessment, which is the responsibility of the IMF, and a financial development assessment, which is the responsibility of the World Bank.
Romania was assessed by the IMF in three FSAPs, as follows:
- The initial FSAP, conducted in 2003, with the report identifying the main vulnerabilities of the Romanian financial sector and the necessary corrective recommendations published in December 2003 (Financial Sector Stability Assessment – FSSA);
- The first update, conducted in 2008-2009, with the subsequent report published in February 2010 (Financial Sector Stability Assessment - FSSA);
- The second update, conducted in 2017-2018, with the assessment, together with all the related documents, published in June 2018 (Financial Sector Stability Assessment - FSSA).
The IMF has provided Romania with technical assistance in several areas, including monetary policy and central bank organization, banking supervision and statistics.
Press Notices of the IMF Regional Representative for Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, Stand-by Arrangements, reports, as well as other information are available on the IMF website.
1 Out of which: SDR 8.62 billion (81.58%) by NBR and SDR 1.95 billion (18,52%) by the MPF.