Romanian Leu Ends Stronger vs Euro

"It's a regional mood [of appreciation] [...] In time when the European Central Bank suggests interest rate cuts, rates in emerging markets are high – ours, Hungary's," one dealer told SeeNews, adding that the market does not consider the Romanian economy as risky as other economies, so S&P's downgrade was not very much taken into consideration.

Global rating agency Standard & Poor's on Monday lowered its long-term and short-term foreign currency sovereign credit ratings on Romania to 'BB+/B' from 'BBB-/A-3', and its local currency long-term rating to 'BBB-' from 'BBB', setting a negative outlook, saying that the downgrade reflects the mounting risks to Romania's real economy.

Romania's central bank, BNR, set its reference exchange rate used for statistical purposes at 3.6645 lei per euro on Wednesday, compared to 3.7370 lei on Tuesday. For the U.S. dollar, the reference exchange rate was set at 2.8546 lei versus Tuesday's 2.9954 lei.

Interest rates on overnight leu deposits rose slightly to an average of 14.27%/18.20% compared to 14.01%/18.29% on Tuesday.

Turnover on the interbank leu deposit market fell to 965 million lei on Tuesday from 1,095.4 million lei on Monday. The BNR will issue Wednesday's figures on Thursday.

Following are Wednesday's average bid and ask quotes of commercial banks on Romania's interbank market. They were calculated at 11 a.m. (0800 GMT) by the BNR, based on data provided by 10 commercial banks (in pct):