The national currency opened at 4.495, similar with 4.4935/4.496 at Monday close.
The emerging currencies weakened in the past week as a consequence of US dollar’s rise against the euro. Generally, when investors turn to the dollar as a safer bet than the euro, the currencies in the Central and Eastern Europe are falling as they are perceived even riskier than the single currency.
However, the leu’s decline is milder, as it fell in December as well, while the Hungarian forint and the Polish zloty gained up to 1.5% against the euro in the last month of 2013.
Romania’s central bank set Monday the leu’s exchange rate at 4.4947, the weakest level in six months.
On the money market Tuesday morning, overnight rates stayed around 1%-1.5% a year, considerably lower than the central bank’s key rate of 4%.