The Minister of the Economy, Sergio Massa, is working on an intense schedule to visit Washington on August 29, as part of an international tour that will allow him to strengthen relations with organizations, gain confidence in the markets, bring in investments, with the objective of recomposing the reserves and propping up the economy, sources from the Palacio de Hacienda entrusted to Télam.
“The purpose of the tour is not so much to apply for new loansbut rather to accelerate current investment loans and propose new investments in the country,” said those sources close to Massa, who are working against the clock to put together their agenda that is being defined these days.
The Economy Minister is scheduled to meet with the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgievwhere it will ratify that the objective set out in the agreement signed last March will be met, lower the deficit to 2.5% of GDP by the end of the year.
Likewise, they will continue with the work plan imposed by the second review, which would begin in September, and which will require several joint work sessions, while the foreign exchange restriction due to energy demand continues and the 2023 Budget is being designed.
This bill, which must be presented before September 15 in Congress, will definitely contain the ratification of the goals with the IMF, in the context of the continuation of the war in Ukraine.
Massa’s initial idea was to tour the United States, France and Qatar, but it was decided to divide the tour in two, to enhance the agenda of contacts and negotiations. It was also decided to postpone it for a week – initially it was thought it might be the third week of August – since this is the month when many key Washington officials are on vacation.
Thus, Massa plans to spend two or three days in Washington to guarantee an agenda at the highest institutional level and at least one day on Wall Streetto strengthen the relationship with investors.
The Argentine ambassador in Washington Jorge Arguellois working on putting together the agenda, which would include an interview with the managing director of the IMF, with the president of the World Bank, David Malpass, and in the Treasury it is not ruled out that Massa could arrange a meeting with the secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, and Deputy Secretary David Lipton.
A highlight of the journey will be the meeting that is being managed to visit José González, the person in charge for the region who works with Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan. “Massa has a very good relationship, they know each other a lot, he was at his house in Tigre and he was at his house in the United States,” Massa’s trusted source said.
Over there the objective is to strengthen the economic and political strategy between both nationsand that later lead to specific policies managed by the United States Treasury, both multilaterally and bilaterally.
Both Sullivan and González had received Massa at the United States embassy in Argentina, during his visit in 2021, when negotiations for an agreement with the IMF were being discussed, and which Massa supported.
Also, the definition of a meeting with the president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Mauricio Claver-Caronewho drastically changed his position with Argentina as soon as Masa took office, and where the official intentions are to unblock the already approved and delayed credits that are about 500 million dollars, and to speed up those that are in the pipeline, for about 700 million dollars. “There may be news on the same trip,” they enthused in the environment of the minister.
Meanwhile, with the World Bank, although there are no delays in the pipeline, in the Massa environment they believe that “disbursements of 800 million could be accelerated”which would be added to the 750 million that CAF, another multilateral organization, would approve next week.
As for the meeting with investors in Manhattan, Massa will speak with “Argentine bondholders, investment banks, and companies with interests in the country,” where he will seek to gain confidence.
“With the investment banks, it is expected to start a work agenda to structure products from Argentina, which will include the Vaca Muerta II projects, lithium projects in northern Argentina, and food security,” among others.
Then, the trip to France will be left for a few days later, to begin renegotiate the 2,400 million dollars of debt with the Paris Club and the trip to Qatar, where the bet will be to attract investments, also in energy and food security, when the war in Ukraine continues, and Europe would be very interested, in this sense, indicated a source who was working over the weekend in the Massa offices in the Liberator avenue.
“Immediate money can be requested in exchange for specific projects, and the idea is to privilege investment projects and not so much loans,” they expressed from the Massa environment, about the objectives of the tours abroad, and in particular in Qatar, where Opera a sovereign fund, of more than 300,000 million dollars.
The same sources do not rule out that later there will be contacts with Saudi Arabia, a country that also has a sovereign fund, and that in the past had offered the country 6,500 million dollars, although the initiative did not prosper.
