(Repeats story first transmitted late Thursday)
By Marius Zaharia
BUCHAREST, March 12 (Reuters) - A financial aid package for Romania could fall in a range close to 7.4 billion to 16 billion euros, or the EU member's expected 2009 financing gap, the central bank's chief economist said on Thursday.
The Black Sea state has approached the International Monetary Fund and the European Union for economic support which would make it the third member of the bloc to seek outside help to weather the global financial crisis.
Valentin Lazea also said Romania's economy could contract in the first quarter but he sees positive growth for all of 2009.
He said the purpose of an aid deal would be to restore confidence in markets and its size would be close to the estimate given on Wednesday by Lucian Croitoru, adviser to the central bank's governor, on Romania's financing gap. [ID:nLB235206]
"Ranges partially similar or confirming the numbers given by Mr. Croitoru would be closer to reality than a single number," Lazea told Reuters in an interview.
Although not a member of the bank's policy board, Lazea said he had engaged in talks with the IMF, which sent a two-week mission to Bucharest on Wednesday. However, he said his views were not the official position of the monetary authority.
Croitoru said on Wednesday the range of Romania's funding gap would depend on various debt rollover scenarios.
No details on the size of a possible package have emerged, but analysts have speculated the amount could be around 20 billion euros from the IMF and the EU, about the same amount as Hungary's $25 billion deal agreed last year.
Lazea said the word "bailout" was inappropriate for Romania as such a measure would be only preventive, unlike Hungary or Latvia's cases, although President Traian Basescu said earlier this week a foreign loan was the only way to rescue the economy.
Lazea said the leu
"The leu should not have the same path as the forint because Romania's fundamentals are different than Hungary's," he said.
"While they reached a deal with the Fund to solve problems that already existed in the economy, we are only acting preventively."
The leu has fallen less than the Hungarian forint or the Polish zloty
He did not comment on dealers' suspicions of covert central bank intervention since the start of the year. The bank's official policy is that the leu is in free float but it reserves the right to intervene in currency markets.
Market watchers say that may be the main reason the leu has not weakened as much as its regional peers. Another reason could be that Romania has left its interest rates high, while its peers have slashed their costs of borrowing, they say.
DIFFERENTIATION
Lazea said Romania was better placed to ride out the world crisis than many emerging European states mainly because it had the EU's lowest percentage of exports and non-government credit to GDP, at 24 and 39 percent, respectively.
While its main economic vulnerability is its current account gap, the trade deficit shrank over 60 percent on the year in January, which showed the adjustment was happening faster than the central bank had expected, he said.
Companies have borrowed heavily this decade in a race to modernise and become competitive with those in other EU states, inflating the current account shortfall.
Because the country must cover that deficit with incoming foreign funds, financing risks have risen due to evaporating credit from western lenders hit by the credit crunch.
Lazea said fourth-quarter growth data showing a sharp slowdown, to 2.9 percent, from 9.1 percent in the previous quarter, were not discouraging enough for the central bank to cut its benchmark interest rate, now at 10 percent.
Higher-than-expected February inflation -- it was 6.9 percent -- also meant rates should stay high, he said.
"Tight monetary policy has been the only one that has kept a macroeconomic balance, while fiscal and income policies were extremely lax ... Inflation in February is a solid argument not to start an easing cycle." (Editing by Toby Chopra)