The Minister of Economy, Silvina Batakiswill develop this Monday and Tuesday an intense agenda of activities in Washington that include meetings with the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgievauthorities from the United States Department of the Treasury, the World Bank and investors.
Batakis, together with the Deputy Minister of Economy, Karina Angelettiarrived in the US capital at noon and in the early afternoon held his first working meeting with Ambassador Jorge Argüello, at the diplomat’s residence.
The meeting with Kristalina Georgieva will take place this Monday from 12:45 p.m. (Washington time, 1:45 p.m. in Argentina) at the headquarters of the multilateral credit organization, in what will be the first face-to-face meeting that both will maintain after the virtual contact they had on the 6 last July, after the official was sworn in as the new head of the Palacio de Hacienda.
The agenda with the IMF also includes a working lunch with Ilan Goldfajndirector of the multilateral organization for the Western Hemisphere; Luis Cubedduhead of the Mission for Argentina; and Julie Kozakdeputy director of the Western Hemisphere Department who will step down at the end of August to serve as Deputy Director in the IMF’s European Department.
This Monday, the first activity of the day will be held at 11:30 local time (12:30 in Argentina) at the US Treasury Department, where Batakis will be received by the adviser to the Secretary of the Treasury, David Lipton; the Undersecretary for Institutional Relations, Andy Baukol; and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere and South Asia, Michael Kaplan.
In all these activities, the minister will be accompanied by Angeletti, Argüello and by the minister Adrian Nadorhead of the Chancellery of the Argentine Embassy in the United States.
After the meeting with the directors of the IMF, at 5:00 p.m. local time (6:00 p.m. in Argentina), Batakis will hold a meeting with the Director General of Operations of the World Bank, Axel Von Trotsenburg.
The World Bank maintains a normal schedule of disbursement of credits agreed with Argentina and new announcements could be made this Monday.
Tuesday’s agenda includes a working breakfast -at the headquarters of the Argentine Embassy- with investors and analysts, among whom executives from Santander Investments, Stone Harbor, Goldentree, Bracebridge, Barcaly’s Capital and Banza, among others, have already confirmed their presence.
After noon, Batakis will participate in a meeting that will take place in the US Chamber of Commerce in which he will give a speech and in which he will later hold bilateral meetings with the president of the oil company Chevron for production and exploitation in Africa and Latin America. , Clay Neff.
Starting at 2:30 p.m. local time (3:30 p.m. in Argentina) it will continue with a series of bilateral meetings with executives from General Motors, Amazon and Google.
Batakis’s trip to Washington took shape at the end of last week, after the suspension of the meeting that President Alberto Fernández planned to hold with Joe Biden, due to the US president’s coronavirus situation.
“The President, on the basis that the meeting with Biden is postponed for a few days, instructed me to put together an intense agenda for the economy minister, and it is armed”, Argüello told Télam on Friday
At the meeting they held this Sunday afternoon Batakis and Argüello at the ambassador’s residence in Washington reviewed issues related to the bilateral level with the US, the relationship with multilateral organizations, including the IDB, and the meetings they will hold with investors, analysts and directors of international firms.
Argüello, in addition to being the ambassador to the US, is responsible for coordinating with credit and political organizations, including the IMF, the World Bank, the OAS and the UN.
Beyond the importance of the trip in general, the focus of Bagtakis’ activity will be on the meeting he will hold this Monday with Georgieva.
The day after her assumption as head of the Palacio de Hacienda, the minister had a virtual meeting with the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, in which both agreed to continue working together to promote macroeconomic stability on the path of growth.
“In a framework of trust, we had a fruitful conversation with Georgieva and we look forward to continuing to have a positive dialogue“, Batakis maintained on that occasion.
Georgieva, for her part, said that the communication she had with the new Economy Minister was “very good” and that she hopes to “continue our constructive collaboration” to achieve the objectives.
“Very good call with Minister Silvina Batakis today (for Sunday) to talk about the implementation of the Argentina program. We look forward to continuing our constructive collaboration to promote economic stability and inclusive growth in a very challenging global environment,” Georgieva told through the IMF account on the social network Twitter.
Very good call with Minister @sbatakis today to discuss implementation of #Argentina‘s program. Looking forward to continuing our constructive engagement to promote economic stability and inclusive growth in ?? in a very challenging global environment.
— Kristalina Georgieva (@KGeorgieva) July 6, 2022
On Thursday, July 14, following the announcements made by the minister, The International Monetary Fund (IMF) maintained that the economic measures are “consistent” with the objectives of the program that the multilateral organization signed with Argentina last March.
The Director of Communications of the Fund, Gerry Rice, in the framework of the press conferences that he usually gives every other Thursday, highlighted that “the minister recently and publicly reiterated her commitment to the implementation of the program supported by the Fund and the agreed objectives of the program”.
After which he added: “The measures announced by the minister are consistent with the objectives of the program that were agreed to strengthen macroeconomic stability and begin to address the deep-seated challenges of Argentina.”
