Eurostat Team Visits Romania For Talks On 2010 Deficit

04.27.2011 By Florentina Dragu

A team of European Union’s statistical arm Eurostat will arrive in Bucharest at the end of the month to hold talks on the country’s budget for 2010, a Finance Ministry official said Wednesday.

A team of European Union's statistical arm Eurostat will arrive in Bucharest at the end of the month to hold talks on the country's budget for 2010, a Finance Ministry official said Wednesday.

"It's possible there will be follow-up visits, at the end June and then in July," said Gheorghe Gherghina, state secretary at the ministry.

On Tuesday, Eurostat said it was reserved on the quality of budget data reported by Romania for 2010, citing uncertainties on the impact of some public corporations on the government deficit and on the reporting of ESA95 categories "other accounts receivable and payable.

The Romanian government has always shown "good faith" and has "worked well" with Eurostat, Finance Minister Gheorghe Ialomitianu said. He assured the government didn't send inaccurate data to the authorities in Brussels.

Romania's statistics institute announced the authorities in Bucharest would verify the financial data of a series of public companies for the 2007-2009 period to identify potential discrepancies between their financial and non-financial accounts.

The revised data will be sent to Eurostat in time for the final 2010 government deficit and debt report due for release in September.

Romania's budget deficit is calculated monthly through the methods of financial and non-financial accounts. The central bank handles the financial accounts data, while the statistics institute the non-financial accounts.

Whenever there are discrepancies larger than 200 million lei (EUR49 million) between the two methods, an analysis is conducted.

"We have to clarify which institution is right: the central bank or the statistics institute," Ialomitianu said earlier Wednesday.

Last year, the EU has revised up by 0.3 percentage points its estimations on Romania's government deficit in 2008 and 2009, following a reclassification of state-owned companies inside the budget sector.