April 2 (SeeNews) - Romania's finance minister Florin Citu said on Thursday that the country's economy will see a strong rebound in two months following the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
"We will have a V-shape development - a decline followed by rapid recovery - in two months at the most," finance minister Florin Citu told local broadcaster Digi24. Citu added that Romania's economy may slide into recession this year but there is no reason to be too pessimistic.
Citu stressed that for the time being Romania has not tapped into the finance ministry's buffer funds to pay current expenses. In his words, Romania is not considering a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or from another international lender at this moment.
Romania's government has decided to raise the ceiling for credit guarantees for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) affected by the coronavirus crisis by 5 billion lei ($1.13 million/1.03 million euro) and to cover 75% of the salary of employees sent into technical unemployment by affected companies.
The government plans to allocate almost 2% of GDP to support sectors affected by the coronavirus epidemic.
Romania has so far confirmed 2,738 cases of the coronavirus infection and 94 deaths, according to latest data from the health ministry.