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'Mugur Isărescu' (born August 1, 1949) is the Governor of the National Bank of Romania. From 1999 to 2000 he served as Prime Minister. He is a member of the Romanian Academy.
Born in Drăgăşani, Vâlcea County, he graduated in 1971 from the Academy of Economic Studies of Bucharest. For the next 19 years, he worked for the Institute of International Economics.
After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, he worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then for the Romanian Embassy in the United States. In September 1990 he became Governor of the National Bank of Romania, a position that he has retained since (except for the short period when he served as Prime Minister).
On 16 December, 1999 Isărescu was sworn in as Prime Minister of Romania, but only for about a year, since in November 2000, the ruling coalition lost the elections.
In November 2000 Isărescu ran for President of Romania but was soundly defeated, coming in fourth place and receiving 9% of the vote.
Thereafter, he returned to the National Bank of Romania for another term as Governor.
Although he served only one year as Prime Minister, Isărescu is considered to have started the reform process, continued later by Adrian Năstase and Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu. In 1999, Mugur Isărescu, as Prime Minister, opened negotiations with the European Union, a process concluded in late 2004. As governor of the National Bank of Romania, Mugur Isărescu has coordinated Romania's economic policy since 1990, being considered by some the hidden Prime Minister of the country.
Isărescu managed in 15 years of leadership at the National Bank of Romania to create and maintain a mysterious aura around the policies of the National Bank, and many pointed out that the agenda of the Bank remained independent from any Romanian Government. Many credit the National Bank team for saving Romania's economy from a Bulgarian-type collapse, raising the national gold and Euro reserves beyond needs, cutting down inflation to single-digit figures and introducing the New Leu.
He is a member of the Club of Rome.