October 7 (SeeNews) - The Romanian leu on Wednesday eased against the euro, mirroring downward trends of other regional currencies, dealers said.
The leu ended at 4.2650/2700 per euro, compared to 4.2580/2630 on Tuesday.
The leu depreciated today like regional peers did, especially the Czech crown, one dealer told SeeNews. The Romanian currency strenghtened beyond the 4.26-per-euro mark in early trading before weakening later in the day, he said.
Last week the leu neared the 4.3-per-euro mark amidst political uncertainty following the break-up of the country’s two-party government coalition. All ministers from left-wing Social Democratic Party stepped down on Thursday after President Traian Basescu endorsed the dismissal of Interior Minister Dan Nica, affiliated to the party.
Romanian opposition National Liberal Party, PNL, and the Democratic Union of the Hungarians in Romania, UDMR, on Tuesday filed a no-confidence motion against the minority government led by Prime Minister Emil Boc. A debate on the motion took place on Wednesday, together with a protest rally in Bucharest streets organised by trade unions.
Romania’s central bank, BNR, set its reference exchange rate at 4.2673 per euro on Wednesday, compared to 4.2619 per euro on Tuesday. For the U.S. dollar, the BNR set its reference exchange rate at 2.9001 versus Tuesday’s 2.8921.
BNR on Wednesday injected 11.04 billion lei on the interbank money market through a two-day repo deal at a rate of 8.0% and another 4.04 billion lei via another two-day repo deal at a rate of 8.0%.
“The National Bank organised today two repo auctions to check if on the market do not exist somehow impediments from a technical point of view for maintaining an adequate liquidity, in the context of interbank interest rates staying at, I would say abnormal levels, near 10%, on condition that the key interest rate is at 8.0%,” BNR’s spokesman Mugur Stet said in a statement on Wednesday.
Interest rates on overnight leu deposits rose to 9.68%/10.18% on Wednesday from 9.61%/10.11% on Tuesday.
Turnover on the interbank leu deposit market rose to 1.929 billion lei on Tuesday from 1.339 billion lei on Monday. The BNR will issue Wednesday’s turnover figures on Thursday.