Romania could register this year an economic growth of 2-3%, possibly even higher, said on Tuesday the Governor of the National Bank of Romania, Mugur Isărescu, at the presentation conference of the Report on Inflation.

“We have a far from dark outlook on the situation, a slightly positive and realistic outlook. We are also trying, together with the Government, to bring inflation down without creating a recession. If the GDP in the second quarter is quasi-stagnant compared to the first quarter, it does not mean that the economy is stagnant,” says Isărescu.

”In the first quarter it grew by 5, almost 6%. If it is quasi-stagnant, the second quarter compared to the first means that compared to last year it is by 5% bigger. So our message was far from stagnation of economic growth. We do not make forecasts of economic growth. Here is the director from Modeling, he wants to scold me because as a rule in our model we do not offer figures regarding economic growth, but in any case we do not have, we are not talking about stagnation of growth this year. Probably somewhere around 2-3%, I say, but I am more pessimistic, it could be even more…So together with the Government we are trying to bring inflation down without creating a recession and without affecting the labor market too much. It is a difficult exercise. We have to be very careful how we navigate and how we calibrate the monetary policy,” said Mugur Isărescu, according to Agerpres.

Also, the governor of the central bank was asked about the increase in rates on loans paid by Romanians and mentioned that the institution is in total empathy with them because it is not easy to pay larger amounts, but the message that the bank has been giving for over a year is that the period of low interest rates has passed.