Romania needs a preventive external financing to secure Romania's economic development and protect the economic interests of the population, Governor of the Central Bank Mugur Isarescu said on Friday.

Isarescu attended the first meeting of the inter-ministerial committee on securing internal and external financing for Romania, which was set up on Wednesday and comprises the prime minister and nine ministers in charge with the country's local and foreign financing.

The issue of resuming the lending, through correlating the government fiscal policies with the Central Bank's money policies was discussed at the meeting, a press release of the government said.

According to the release, the Romanian authorities will continue talks with the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international financial institutions in order to secure external financing for Romania.

An IMF mission has been in Bucharest since Wednesday throughout March 25 to discuss the details for an agreement with the Romanian government, one week after preliminary talks were held in Washington.

According to government sources, the Romanian authorities intend to borrow 19 billion euros (about 24.52 billion U.S. dollars), 12 billion euros from the IMF and 7 billion euros from the EU, following an evaluation made by the Finance Ministry and the central bank.

According to Romania's Finance Ministry, the external financial assistance and proactive measures on the part of the Romanian authorities are a guarantee for the consolidation of medium-term financial stability, thus encouraging the recovery of the business milieu and winning back investors' confidence in Romania's economic potentials. In the long run, necessary conditions are set in place to capitalize on the opportunities for economic growth when the global economy recovers. (US$1 = 0.7749 euros)

(Xinhua News Agency March 14, 2009)