Economy Minister Sergio Massa will begin a tour of the US cities of Washington and Houston in the first week of September, where he will meet with officials from multilateral organizations, representatives of the White House, the private sector and non-governmental organizations, with a focus on attracting investment, receptive tourism and foreign exchange earnings for the country.
In the last hours, details of the official agenda that will take place between September 6 and 12, whose design is in charge of the Argentine Ambassador to the United States, have become known. Jorge Arguelloand which is coordinated with Massa’s international adviser, career diplomat Gustavo Martínez Pandiani.
Massa will concentrate his activity in two cities -Washington and Houston- and will travel accompanied by a large entourage that includes the Minister of Tourism, Matthias Lammens, who will launch a receptive tourism promotion plan with the United States; the director of the Central Bank -made official today in his position-, Lysander Cleri; the head of the INDEC, Marco Lavagna; the head of advisers to the Ministry of Economy, Leonardo Madcur; the Secretary of Energy, flavia royon; the head of the National Bank, Silvina Batakis; and the presidents of Enarsa, Agustin Gerezand YPF, Paul Gonzalez.
In Washington. will meet with the head of the IMF, Kristalina Georgiev; with the Vice President of Operations of the World Bank, Axel van Trotsenburg; and with the head of the IDB, Mauricio Claver Carone.
Massa also has on the agenda meetings with the highest US Treasury officials -with whom it will advance in the tax information exchange agreement in the AFIP and the IRS to detect irregularities and eventual tax evasion-, with white house officials and with directors of the main companies that are part of the American Chamber of Commerce.
“The central axis of the trip will be the attraction of investments in sectors of the real economy, with the purpose of generating jobs and fiscal income,” they told Télam from the environment of the minister.
In Washington, the head of the Palacio de Hacienda will also hold meetings with high-level political officials and personalities for the region, including John Gonzalez, adviser to President Joe Biden for Latin America at the National Security Council; with the head of the World Jewish Congress, Jack Rosen; and with the Director of the American Jewish Committee, Dinah Siegel Vann.
The minister will also meet with Amos HochsteinPresident Biden’s coordinator for Infrastructure, Investment and Energy.
The meeting with Georgieva
Regarding the agenda of meetings with multilateral organizations, the meeting with Georgieva will take place on Monday, September 12, based on the agenda to which Télam agreed.
With Georgieva, Massa will face the formal start of the second review and will analyze compliance with the goals of the agreement with the IMF and possible reformulations in the context of the war in Ukraine, on the one hand, and the concrete measures recently announced by the minister to lower the fiscal deficit, on the other.
In the meeting with the head of the IMF there will be Madcur, Cleri and Lavagna, and the possibility of adding batakis to the same, who was invited by Massa to accompany him on his debut tour.
The team’s technicians are expected to hold meetings with the Fund’s Western Hemisphere staff, led by Brazilian Ilan Goldfjan, which could begin even before Massa’s arrival in the US.
For his part, with the world Bank and with him IDBMassa will seek to “expedite the disbursement of important loans destined for infrastructure and productive projects, currencies that will strengthen the fiscal balance and reserves,” the same sources said.
Also in Washington, Massa will launch, together with the Minister of Tourism, Matías Lammens, “a program to promote receptive tourism that will remain in the hands of the official IMPROTUR program and that aims to generate foreign exchange,” the sources added.
On the other hand, the Minister of Economy will hold talks with twenty US companies that currently have investments in Argentina, within the framework of a meeting coordinated by the US Chamber of Commerce and the Argentine Embassy.
On Friday, September 9, Massa would move to houston accompanied by Royon and the presidents of YPF and Enarsa, to meet with executives from the Chevron, Exxon, Shell and Total firms.
The Minister of Economy also has scheduled meetings with authorities from the Volkswagen automaker, the Rio Tinto and Livent (lithium) mining firms, and the Amazon groupamong other companies.
“The mission aims to consolidate support in the US for the stabilization of the Argentine economy and strengthen reserves through more markets for national exports, more productive investments in strategic sectors such as energy, gas, agribusiness, proteins, knowledge-based services , minority and more foreign currency income from receptive tourism,” they stressed in the Ministry of Economy.
