Argentina may have access to US$4.7 billion (R$22.9 billion) to pay part of its debt with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) within the scope of the seventh review of the extended facilities program signed with the institution in 2022.
According to the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, who gave a press conference this Wednesday (10), this is not “a new agreement”, but the government of President Javier Milei has committed to recovering the existing one, because the other “it would take much longer.”
The Argentine government and the IMF technical team, with which local authorities met in recent days, reached a technical level agreement that must be approved by the Executive Board and, if fulfilled, will release these US$4.7 billion for help refinance the debt of US$44.5 billion (R$217 billion) that the country owes to the entity.
In a joint statement, the IMF team, consisting of the deputy director of the Fund's Western Hemisphere Department, Luis Cubeddu; the head of the mission in Argentina, Ashvin Ahuja; and the IMF representative in the country, Ben Kelmanson, considered that Milei's government acted “quickly and decisively to develop and implement a strong policy package aimed at restoring macroeconomic stability” before the “serious deviation” of the program , in reference to the previous administration, led by Peronist Alberto Fernández.
“The primary fiscal deficit and domestic debt targets for the end of September were not met, and preliminary data suggests that the targets for the end of the year were missed by an even larger margin,” the text added.
Caputo, who participated in the press conference with the president of the Central Bank of Argentina (BCRA), Santiago Bausili, said that the IMF team will send the recommendation “with the new targets” at the end of January, which, subject to management approval, will allow the disbursement of US$4.7 billion. “This disbursement is not new money, it is money to pay the capital maturities that occurred in December – when we had to ask CAF -, January and April. These three maturities add up to approximately this amount”, he explained.
Furthermore, according to him, Argentina should add US$600 million (R$2.9 trillion) in interest in February. The agreement reached concludes the seventh review of the extended facilities program, signed with the entity in March 2022, to refinance the debt contracted in 2018 during the government of Mauricio Macri (2015-2019).
The eighth will be held in May, as confirmed by the Minister of Economy. According to Caputo, the program “does not include the contraction of new debts”, since, as he reiterated, “the debt contracted is only due to the fact that the country spends more than it collects”.
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