Argentina postponed to July 31 the maturities of capital this month with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but confirmed the payment of coupons corresponding to sovereign bonds held by private creditors, in a context of scarcity of foreign exchange.
“The authorities exercised their right as a member to bundle three buybacks [pagamentos de principal] due in July and pay them at the end of the month [ou seja, 31 de julho]”, an IMF spokesman told EFE.
As it did in June, the Argentine government decided to postpone payments to the IMF until the end of the month, one of which was due this Friday (7), totaling around US$ 2.6 billion.
The same strategy was applied to the payment of US$ 2.7 billion on the last day of last month, when it finally paid with its own resources – a combination of special drawing rights (SDRs) and yuan.
The postponement of payments occurs because the approval of the quarterly targets that give the Argentine government the right to receive installments of another aid package granted by the IMF and that allows it to pay outstanding salaries with the institution itself, has not been finalized.
Argentina continues to renegotiate with the IMF the aid program it signed in 2022 to refinance the US$ 45 billion debt contracted with the institution in 2018. According to the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, this program would cover the maturities corresponding to the second half of this year.
Part of the economic team was supposed to travel this week to Washington, where the IMF is headquartered, to advance the discussions, but today that is uncertain.
Argentina’s fiscal imbalances and dollar shortages, exacerbated by a severe drought that had a major impact on the agricultural sector, made it difficult to meet targets for the first and second quarters of this year.
In a context of negative net international reserves, Finance Secretary Eduardo Setti confirmed on his Twitter account that Argentina will pay the nearly US$1.05 billion in sovereign bond coupons, both in accordance with foreign and local legislation. .
“According to the usual schedule, we will make coupon payments on securities denominated and payable in foreign currency,” Setti announced on Monday.
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