A week ago, it paid a capital installment of US$700 million from the stand-by loan. It did so after agreeing on a program of extended facilities with the IMF, also for US$44.5 billion and payments from 2024 to 2032.
“The interest payment is about 370 million dollars,” detailed one of the sources. After the payment, the total international reserves of the Central Bank fell to US$37,189 million.
The new agreement establishes a progressive reduction of the fiscal deficit, until reaching zero in 2025, and other goals for inflation, tax collection, energy subsidies, monetary issue and exchange rate adjustment.
According to the director of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva they are “debating” with a “pragmatic” approach. “Our main focus is to get Argentina off this very dangerous path of high inflation”Georgiev declared.
In the first 11 months of 2021, the Argentine economy grew 10.3%, but the accumulated inflation for the entire year was 50.9%.
The terms of the memorandums of understanding will be negotiated by the government and the Fund authorities during the coming weeks and compliance with the goals will be reviewed by the IMF every three months.
In Russia, where he made an official visit, President Alberto Fernández said Thursday that “Argentina has to let go of that huge dependency it has on the IMF.”
The loan taken by Macri in 2018 was for US$57,000 million, but by assuming the government of Alberto Fernández refused to take the remaining sections which concentrated maturities between 2022 and 2024.
The agreement, which must be ratified by the Argentine Congress and by the executive board of the IMF, stipulates that the following principal maturities will be financed with the funds of the new program.
In 2020, the Fernández government had restructured some $66 billion of debt with international private creditors.
Source: Ambito
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