The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund will meet on June 28th to assess Romania"s economic performance, according to the report drawn up by the IMF evaluation mission, which visited Bucharest between April 27th - May 10th, the schedule of the IMF board says.

Contacted by BURSA, Tony Lybek, the official of the IMF in Romania, declined to comment on whether Romania would receive the loan or not, and said he would make a statement after the meeting of the IMF board.

Romania"s has great odds of receiving the fifth tranche of the IMF loan, according to the statements by officials of the Ministry of Finance and of Romania"s official with the IMF, Mihai Tănăsescu.

"If the government keeps its promises, the odds of Romania getting the approval of the board of the IMF for the release of the fifth tranche are great. Based on the informal talks we had in Washington, if the Romanian authorities honored all their commitments, the Board will discuss the release of the fifth tranche and the odds are it will go through", Mihai Tănăsescu said.

The local authorities made considerable efforts to convince the officials of the IMF to release the fifth installment of the loan. The main measures that the Government decided to adopt include cutting wages by 25% in the public sector and cutting pensions and welfare aids by 15%.

As a result, at the end of June, Romania will receive the fifth tranche of the IMF loan, of 850 million Euros. The money will go directly to the NBR, as whereas the tranche from the EU, which will come later, will enter the budget of the Ministry of Finance.

So far, Romania has received almost 9.3 billion Euros from the IMF, 2.5 billion Euros from the EU and 300 million Euros from the World Bank.

IZABELA SÎRBU (TRANSLATED BY COSMIN GHIDOVEANU) The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund will meet on