* "Someone who invests in making sausages, is just as important as the one who speculates shares of TEL or RRC"
* "I never yielded to Sorin Blejnar"
* "Investors act like hysterical women"
* Interview with Sebastian Vlădescu, former Finance minister
Reporter: Mr. Sebastian Vlădescu, what is your opinion concerning the huge losses suffered by the Romanian banking system in 2012 and what repercussions do you feel they will have on the Romanian economy?
Sebastian Vlădescu: I think that we have a major problem when it comes to the losses posted by the banking system in 2012.
That is why I think that this should be the first chapter to be read from the February draft of the letter of intention to the IMF.
After rolling over non-performing loans for three-four years, lenders are now acknowledging their losses, which are reflected in the clearest manner possible, in the contraction of lending.
The letter of intent itself includes the recommendation of the IMF for the banks to stop doing that.
I think that it is a very serious phenomenon and I think that this will be the major problem of 2013.
By overlapping the accumulation of provisions and later losses, in the banking system, with the reduction of the financing lines from the parent banks, we have a big process of lending contraction, which, for the Romanian companies translates into serious problems in the day-to-day operation.
What is happening now is actually the repercussion of the excessive lending in the period of economic boom of the Romanian companies.
The adjustment from the excessive level of 2007-2008 all the way to the level of functionality of is a process which, in the 2009- 2010 period, has been postponed or avoided, in the hope that the crisis is less dangerous, less durable, less deep ... Which wasn't the case.
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