October 30 (SeeNews) - The Romanian leu on Friday closed almost flat against the euro as dealers said the country's central bank may have intervened earilier in the day to support it.
Romania's central bank, BNR, does not comment on its activity on the foreign exchange market.
The leu ended at 4.3000/3090 per euro, compared to 4.2990/3040 per euro on Thursday.
The Romanian currency opened at 4.3030/3070 per euro and depreciated beyond the 4.31 notch, one dealer told SeeNews. Then it appreciated sharply to 4.2860 per euro on large leu-buying orders, he said. "Maybe it was the central bank or just market forces. In either case, it was an aggressive and abrupt move, which corrected fast and the leu almost returned to its opening levels," the dealer said.
The leu has weakened beyond the 4.3-per-euro mark as concerns over a 20 billion euro ($29.51 billion) aid programme for Romania, led by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and political uncertainty put pressure on the market, dealers said.
A mission from the IMF, the European Union and the World bank will be in Bucharest through November 9 for the second review of Romania's economic performance under its stand-by arrangement with the three international organisations. Initially, the IMF had decided to postpone the visit, scheduled to begin on October 21, after the country’s minority government fell in a no-confidence vote.
BNR set its reference exchange rate at 4.2955 per euro on Friday, compared to 4.3079 per euro on Thursday. For the U.S. dollar, the BNR set its reference exchange rate at 2.8927 versus Thursday's 2.9197.
Turnover on the interbank leu deposit market fell to 1.627 billion lei on Thursday from 1.714 billion lei on Wednesday . The BNR will issue Friday’s turnover figures on Monday.
Interest rates on overnight leu deposits rose to 10.00%/10.50% on Friday from 9.75%/10.25% on Thursday.