Romanians woke up on Friday with hundreds instead of millions on their pay slips after the European Union candidate slashed four zeroes off its leu currency to simplify transactions and mark falling inflation. The average salary in the Balkan country of 22 million of 7.4 million lei became 740 lei ($248.7) and a loaf of bread now costs half a leu rather than thousands.
"The poor leu had become more like a stray dog," President Traian Basescu said about the currency whose name in Romanian means "lion."
Basescu was the first Romanian to withdraw new money from a cash dispenser at a midnight ceremony.
Emerging from communism in 1989 after a bloody revolution which toppled dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, Romania battled stubborn inflation for years and saw its currency swelling from 21.5 to the dollar in 1990 to around 29,700 before the change.
"The lion broke out of his cage last night," read a front page headline in leading daily Adevarul.
Analysts said the move will boost confidence in the currency and will cut the costs of printing money.
Also, accounting and statistics would become much easier in a country which used to count its gross domestic product in hundreds of trillions.
Currency dealers said it will take time to get used to the new currency, but did not foresee major problems.
The central bank also says the new leu should help further cut inflation, which fell from around 300 percent in 1993 to 9.3 percent last year, towards 2-3 percent by 2007 or 2008.