Romania and the IMF reached a staff-level agreement to make available 475 million euros (US$683 million) in funds under its new precautionary loan, IMF mission head Jeffrey Franks said.
The mission will recommend to the fund’s board to make available the first installment of the 5 billion euros precautionary accord with the IMF and the EU after Bucharest met its quarterly budget-deficit target, Franks said at a news conference in Bucharest yesterday.
The government has sufficient reserves and has said it doesn’t plan to draw the funds, which will be stored in Washington for emergency withdrawal.
The east European country is trying to attract investors to help spur its recovery after using bailout funds to keep its economy afloat during a two-year recession. The government plans to sell minority stakes in its utilities Transgaz SA and Transelectrica SA and largest oil company OMV Petrom SA to finance investments.
Romania will have difficulty meeting its pledge to narrow its budget deficit to 3 percent of GDP next year from 4.4 percent this year, Franks said.
Romania’s central bank raised its inflation forecast for this year for the second time on Thursday to 5.1 percent as surging global prices pressure domestic food and fuel costs. The country had the EU’s highest inflation rate in March at 8 percent.
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
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Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
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