Friday’s RON/EUR exchange rate announced by the National Bank of Romania (BNR) was up RON 0.0111, to RON 4.3783/euro, RON’s all-time low against the European currency. Mediafax quoted dealers as saying that the central bank continued its indirect intervention in the first half of the interval to tone down the RON depreciation, and managed to bring the quotation at under RON 4.38/euro. The previous all-time low was registered on June 30, 2010 when the euro matched RON 4.3688. The RON depreciated on Friday against the USD too, to RON 3.3544/USD, the highest level in nearly two months. A higher rate was published on Jan 20, when the RON/USD rate equalled 3.3663/1. On Thursday, the central bank published a rate of RON 3.3478/USD. The home currency also depreciated against the Swiss Franc, with the rate going up by RON 0.0195, to RON 3.6258/SF. An even higher level was recorded on Sept 5, 2011 when the rate jumped to RON 3.8133/SF.Adrian Vasilescu, an adviser to BNR Governor Mugur Isarescu told ‘The Money Channel’ that BNR does not make annotations, but only presents the picture. And given that increased public employee salaries remains supposition, Adrian Vasilescu denied the lower rate lately bearing any relation to such plans.“The National Bank answers questions, if there are any. It does not have an exchange, but only an inflation target,” Vasilescu said. Friday early transactions were made at RON 4.3840 – 4.3850/euro, RON 0.15-0.30 above the closing quotations Thursday of 4.3810-4.3835/RON/euro. Later on, some larger euro sell orders put by a local player took the exchange rate to a first half low RON 4.3780-4.3790/euro.
