President Traian Basescu told the ruling coalition leaders they should quickly set the priorities of the investment projects for 2011, after the international lenders allowed Romania to start public acquisitions before the state budget is passed.

Thus, Romania's new letter of intent agreed with the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the World Bank includes the possibility that the 2011 state budget should contain the amounts earmarked for investments in the first two quarters of the year.

'I raised several problems. One was related to what we have managed to introduce in the current letter, for the first time, with the agreement of all the three institutions we worked with - the IMF, the European Union and the World Bank - namely to place the amounts earmarked for investments in the first two quarters of 2011.

This is an important thing, since up until now the investments have been placed to the third and fourth quarters as budget allotment and the money for investments actually became money to settle the deficit,' Basescu explained.

He voiced hope the Government would shortly set its investment priorities for 2011. Thus, the investment contracts for 2011 could be signed as early as in January, he pointed out, at the consultations with the parliamentary parties that back the Government at the Cotroceni presidential Palace.