Romanian Leu Ends Stronger vs Euro Amid Positive Regional Sentiment

November 29 (SeeNews) - The Romanian leu continued to gain ground against the euro on Thursday as emerging markets found favour with foreign investors, dealers said.

The leu closed at 3.5340/70 per euro compared to 3.5640/60 on Wednesday and 3.5940/60 per euro on Tuesday, one dealer told SeeNews.

"Foreigners decided to stay in emerging markets as renewed talk about a possible [interest] rate cut by Fed [U.S. Federal Reserve] spread [...], the sentiment in the region was overall positive," the dealer said.

The leu's appreciation was helped by the decision of the National Bank of Poland to raise its key interest rate by 0.25% to 5.0% on Wednesday due to accelerating inflation, the dealer said.

Romania's central bank, the BNR, raised its key interest rate to 7.5% from 7.0% at the end of October for the same reasons.

BNR set its reference exchange rate, used for statistical purposes, at 3.5248 per euro on Thursday, compared to 3.5615 on Wednesday. For the dollar, the reference exchange rate was set at 2.3921 versus Wednesday's 2.4171 lei.

Interest rates on overnight leu deposits were unchanged from Wednesday, remaining at 7.25%/7.89%.

Turnover on the interbank leu deposit market fell to 800.2 million lei on Wednesday from 836.1 million lei on Tuesday. The BNR will issue Thursday's figures on Friday.

Following are Thursday's average bid and ask quotes of commercial banks on Romania's interbank market. They were calculated at 11 a.m. (0900 GMT) by the BNR, based on data provided by 10 commercial banks (in percent):