Romania has returned to the investment category, after Fitch Ratings improved its credit ratings for long-term foreign currency loans from "BB+" to "BBB-", with a stable outlook.
This brings Romania to its 2004 level, when Fitch gave us this rating, says Călin Rechea, economic analyst at Banca Carpatica. In his opinion this step is "a positive sign for Romania", but it is not enough to create major effects in the long run: "Had this move been followed by other agencies, maybe it would have sent a stronger, more consistent signal".
Under these circumstances, the effects will be short term and will be targeted at stabilizing the sovereign risk, as they are also "an aid for the leu, to end the downward trend it has followed over the last month or so", Mr. Rechea says.
Călin Rechea said that the exchange rate is facing serious issues, as "we have begun to see foreign investors make their exits, and the trend doesn"t seem to be improving. With a large account deficit that is on the rise, the outlook for the exchange rate isn"t good. At any rate, the raise of the rating isn"t enough to help with that".
* Liviu Voinea: Raising the rating is a perverse incentive to get us to borrow more
Liviu Voinea, the president of the Applied Economics Group (GEA), considers that "the exchange rate will move in a rather narrow band, remaining stable for the most part".
He claims that the raise of the rating by Fitch is a good thing, as long as it doesn"t encourage us to borrow more: "It is a positive thing if we consider that we can borrow at lower rates, but we need to be careful as we are being provided with the perverse incentive of borrowing more. This evaluation is made for speculative capital, which could leave the country just as suddenly as it arrived".
* Cristian Pârvan: Fitch should have improved our rating since the beginning of the ye
