November 10 (SeeNews) - Romania's gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to decrease by 4% in 2020, plus or minus two percentage points, finance minister Florin Citu said.
The finance ministry's biggest challenge in 2020 was convincing global rating agencies that the country can manage its spending in a sustainable manner, Citu said during a televised news conference on Monday.
"We managed to keep our credit rating twice this year because we proved to be a reliable government. After ten months, revenues are higher than last year, you will see this in the budget figures due on November 25," Citu added.
Fitch and S&P both affirmed Romania's ratings at BBB- with negative outlook this year - in October and June, respectively.
Florin Citu also said that Romania is not considering fresh borrowing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as 97% of the country's financing needs are covered.
"I have shown this year that if you win the trust of the market and investors, you don't need international financial institutions to finance a large deficit. We financed this deficit to pay for health and aid schemes. We have had record investments, so no agreement is needed with the IMF," Citu stressed.
The IMF said in October that Romania's economy will shrink by 4.8% in 2020 and then expand by 4.6% in 2021.
Romania's economic output contracted by a 10.3% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2020, compared to a 3.5% annual growth in the like quarter of 2019, according to the latest provisional data available from the statistical board, INS.
Romania's economy expanded by 4.1% in 2019.
(1 euro=4.8667 lei)