Diana Popescu, who has run the Treasury in the past year and a half, will become deputy general manager.
Her term in office has been marked by an unprecedented rise in the visibility of Romanian bonds for foreign investors, who reached holdings of around 26% of the stock of bonds in lei and in euros issued on the Romanian market, as well as by Romania’s more intense presence on the external capital markets.
Stefan Nanu at 38, is a young hopeful for the public administration, but already has a 15-year career behind. In 2007 he became general manager of the state’s Treasury and in 2009 he was sent to the World Bank in Washington. Nanu will be replaced at the World Bank by Claudiu Doltu, who also held this position in the past.
The state Treasury manages a portfolio of eurobonds of EUR5.5 billion, bonds in dollars of $3.75 billion and bonds in lei and in euros issued on the Romanian market of over RON110 billion. The treasury is currently undergoing modernization as part of a program supported by the World Bank, which will include conducting derivatives transactions.
The coordination of the public debt management and of the Treasury is the responsibility of Enache Jiru, the secretary of state within the Finance Ministry. This is his second term in office after a first one between 2001 and 2004. Jiru worked with Nanu before, when Jiru was secretary of state and Nanu had a job within the Treasury.
An important bet for the Treasury in the coming period is to lower interest rate costs, which continue to account for around 6% of the budget’s total spending. Lately yields on government bonds in lei have started to decline again after a suspension in June, when external markets were stressed about the prospect of the Fed starting to withdraw its money stimulus.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)