Romania expected to weather the international financial storm well

His statement comes after the announcement by the Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley giants, the only two to seem to have weathered the sub-prime crisis, that they will abandon investment activities to become U.S. Federal Reserve regulated bank holdings. The decision marks the end of an era dominated by independent investment banks on Wall Street, following the bankruptcies filed by Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, and the takeover of Merrill Lynch.

In Romania, the international financial crisis will affect the construction, real estate and retail markets in the medium term, according to the President of the Association of Romanian Businesspeople (AOAR), Florin Pogonaru, who is requesting that the government support investors to stay.

The local financial sector believes it is safe. “The big exposure is for investment banks, not for commercial banks like us. I do not think any Romanian bank will be hit by this,” said the Managing Director of Banca Romana de Dezvoltare (BRD), Patrick Gelin, quoted by Reuters.

The international financial crisis will be felt in Romania only in the short-run, with the most significant impact on more expensive loans and financing for major funding. This is the evaluation of the Chief Executive Officer of Banca Comerciala Romania (BCR), Dominic Brynseels, a banker with 27 years of experience with Barclays, the British financial giant which acquired Lehman Brothers’ shares last week. Brynseels went on to say that the rise in the key interest rate by the central bank will protect banks that are already more conservative.

There are differing opinions about the effects on the capital market, expected to be disproportionate. “The sometimes superficial approach of most brokers, analysts and investors (is at fault), as they encourage each other in copying and interpreting foreign market trends, rather than identifying investment opportunities,” said Andrei Anghel, analyst with the Confident Invest brokerage house.