Economist Turned Premier Vows to Safeguard Romania's Credit Rating

  • Citu says ratings firms should ‘appreciate’ government’s plans
  • ‘We’ll see if they improve the outlook this year,’ Citu says
Florin Citu in his office, on March 30.Photographer: Andrei Pungovschi/Bloomberg
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The head of Romania’s three-month-old government says he can not only stabilize the country’s stretched finances but also stop its wobbling credit rating from falling into junk territory -- despite the challenges posed by the pandemic.

Prime Minister Florin Citu, an economist at ING Bank NV before he switched to politics in 2016, has already nixed a scheduled 40% jump in pensions that risked erasing the nation’s investment-grade status. Despite the extra spending demanded by Covid-19, he’s laid out a budget that will curb what was the European Union’s widest deficit when the disease struck.