A technical team from the Ministry of Economy will leave this Wednesday for the French capital to close the technical agreement with the Paris Club.
Then, in November, the minister Sergio Massa will travel to the same city to seal with the forum of creditor countries the renegotiation of more than US$ 2,000 million remaining debt and accrued interest so far in 2022.
This was confirmed to Télam by official sources, who advanced that The person in charge of relations with multilateral organizations and head of INDEC, Marco Lavagna, and the head of Advisors of the Palacio de Hacienda, Leonardo Madcur, will travel to Parisat the forefront of the economic and legal negotiations, to attend the technical meetings that will begin on Thursday.
In October, Massa made great strides in Washington in negotiations with the Paris Club, during a meeting he held with its secretary general, Emmanuel Moulin. And he was planning to schedule a trip to France for this week.
Now, with the objective set on closing an agreement, the negotiation technicians will travel and then Massa would travel to close the understanding.
“The agreement is almost closed. There are very good prospects”expressed Massa at the time to Télam and a group of journalists at the exit of one of the meetings of the economic team in the United States, within the framework of the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
Argentina’s objective is to negotiate a debt refinancing of approximately US$2.4 billion based on an extension of the repayment terms, a reduction in the interest rate, which is currently 9% per year, and the incorporation into said agreement of the US$ 430 million already paid in two payments in February 2022 and July of 2021.
The 9% interest rate is due to a penalty for the delay incurred by the government of Mauricio Macri at the end of his termand that could be lowered by the time the agreement is sealed.
The approval of the second review of the current program with the IMF, which was formally finalized on October 7, was key to advancing the negotiations, since for the Paris Club it is a base condition (unwritten), to evaluate the performance and policies for the refinancing of Argentina’s debt with said multilateral organization, the sources confirmed.
With the Paris Club, Argentina must renegotiate the payment of nearly US$ 2,500 million that it owes to 24 agencies and banks from 16 countries: Germany, Spain, France, the United States, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Canada, Israel, Italy, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, according to official documents.
Regarding the composition of the debt, the main creditors are Germany (37%), Japan (22%), the Netherlands (8%), Spain (6.%), Italy (6.3%) and the United States (6. 3%).
At the end of May, the Government -under the economic management of Martín Guzmán- reached an agreement with the Paris Club to defer debt payments until September 30, 2024, while progress was made in the design of a new understanding that contemplate another mechanism for repayment of commitments.
The current postponement applies “until there is a new framework agreement”, the result of a negotiation between the country and the Club authorities and its 16 member countries”, or, failing that, “until September 30, 2024”, date maximum granted by the Extended Facilities agreement signed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), according to the terms proposed by the parties.
The official goal was to reach an agreement by the end of June 2022, but the currency crisis, the departure of Guzmán from the government and the change of economy ministers forced the postponement of plans to close the negotiations.
