Prime Minister Viorica Dancila said amendments to the bank tax had been agreed with the central bank and the Romanian banking association.
The tax on banks’ financial assets will be lowered and conditional on market share and will be decoupled from money market rates, a link that hindered monetary policy.
The tax base will also be reduced, exempting some financial assets among which government treasuries, government-guaranteed lending programs and loans to public administrations.
Under the new decree, the ROBOR index (Romanian Interbank Offer Rate), used as a reference in calculating variable interests on household loans, will be replaced by an indicator calculated based on actual interbank transactions. The new indicator will only be considered for new loan stock and would not apply to ongoing loans.
The new decree postpones the enforcement of additional share capital requirements for administrators of mandatory private pension funds, known as Pillar II, until end-May.
In the energy sector, the government will exempt state-owned thermal and coal-fired power plants from a 2% turnover tax. It will keep the tax for other energy producers and will cap electricity and natural gas prices for households and some industrial consumers until end-February 2022.
The prime minister said enforcing penalties in the telecom sector would be suspended until September 1.