January 11 (SeeNews) - An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission will visit Romania between January 25 and February 6 for the fourth review of a precautionary stand-by arrangement with the country, the global lender said on Wednesday.
The mission will be headed by Jeffrey Franks and will also include teams from the European Commission and the World Bank, the IMF said in a statement.
"The mission will meet with the authorities, as well as with representatives of political parties, unions, business associations, banks, and civil society organizations. The mission is expected to disseminate its conclusions at the end of the visit,” IMF's regional resident representative in Romania and Bulgaria Tonny Lybek said in the statement.
IMF approved a two-year precautionary stand-by arrangement with Romania worth some 3.5 billion euro ($4.5 billion) last March. The Romanian authorities are treating the arrangement as precautionary and therefore do not plan to draw under it.
The stand-by arrangement is in conjunction with precautionary support from the European Union of 1.4 billion euro and a loan from the World Bank of 400 million euro.
The total resources already made available to Romania by the IMF under the deal amount to around 1.6 billion euro.
The deal succeeds a 20 billion euro aid package Romania signed in May 2009 with IMF, the European Union and other international lenders.
($ = 0.7824 euro)