The Regional Office for Romania and Bulgaria and its Staff

The IMF Regional Office for Romania and Bulgaria was established in September 2006, succeeding the Resident Representative Office for Romania. Its primary objective is to enhance the Fund's ability to carry out surveillance in Romania and Bulgaria, which is the core Fund activity in these countries after they joined the EU in January 2007.

To this end, the office:

• Works closely with teams at headquarters to make them more effective in their surveillance activities, including through the active contribution to the development of the policy advice of the respective teams;
• Monitors and analyzes economic developments and informs the IMF teams at headquarters;
• Acts as a conduit to channel the analysis prepared at headquarters to the governments in Bucharest and Sofia; and maintains contacts with the main policy-makers to relay the views of the authorities on policy matters to IMF headquarters;
• Promotes the views of the IMF and pursues the goals of the institution in the region, including through outreach activities with the media, think-tanks, universities, trade unions, professional associations and other relevant interlocutors;
• Brings a regional focus to the Fund's advice, by making policy makers aware of common policy issues of interest to the Fund, paying particular attention to financial sector surveillance;
• Provides targeted training to local officials.

To fulfill this mandate in Bulgaria the regional representative, who resides in Bucharest, visits Sofia periodically, where the IMF maintains an office at the central bank.

	From left to right: Florin Cirstea, Anca Paliu Dragu, Tonny Lybek, Victorita Alexandru and Luminita Dragan.
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Tonny Lybek, a Danish citizen, is the IMF's representative in Romania and Bulgaria since March 31, 2009. He joined the IMF in 1992, where he has worked on a broad range of issues, among others, monetary policy, banking supervision, payment systems, central bank legislation and published papers on central bank governance. In the IMF, he has worked in the Fiscal Affairs Department (1992-93), European II Department (1993-94), Monetary and Capital Markets Department (MCM: 1994-2007), and European Department (2007- ). During his previous assignments, he has worked on countries in the region (e.g., Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Albania). As Mission Chief in MCM, he worked on Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kazakhstan, and the Kyrgyz Republic. In 1986, he graduated from Århus University in Denmark. After teaching for a year, he worked in the Danish Central Bank (Danmarks Nationalbank) for five years, mainly on international reserve management and monetary policy. (e-mail: tlybek@imf.org)

Anca Paliu Dragu graduated in Finance and Banking from the Academy for Economic Studies Bucharest, in Economics and International Business from the George Washington University, Washington DC, USA, and in Public Policy and European Integration from National School of Political Studies, Bucharest. Mrs. Paliu Dragu has been an economist at the IMF office since 2001. Prior to that she was an economist of the National Bank of Romania, Refinancing and Open Market Operation Department, and Regulation Department, which she joined in 1996. (e-mail: apaliu@imf.org)

Iana Paliova (not in the photo group) is the economist in the IMF Office of the Resident Representative in Bulgaria. She holds a Master in Political Economy from Saint-Petersburg State University, Russia. She carried out a research into Public Finance and Budget Decision Making at Leicester University, UK. Iana Paliova is author of Budget Decision Making Theory, monograph, and co-author of Public Sector Economics, a textbook. Both are used for the master degree program in Public Finance at the University for National and World Economy, Sofia. She has previously worked as State Treasurer with the Ministry of Finance, lecturer at the University for National and World Economy, Sofia, and as a short term expert of the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department. (e-mail ipaliova@imf.org )

Luminita Dragan is the office manager. She graduated from the University of Bucharest, Faculty of English-Geography in 1989. She joined the former resident representative office for Romania-where she was seconded by the National Bank of Romania-in 1991. (e-mail: ldragan@imf.org)

Florin Cirstea has been working for the IMF in Romania since 1991 as a driver, procurement officer, and general support for the resident representative office.

Vicki Alexandru is in charge of logistics and overall general support for the resident representative office, which she joined in 2006.