Argentina confirmed that it had reached an agreement on the renegotiation of that country’s debt with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) early this Friday, taken under the government of Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) and with two more payment tranches. $1.00 million in total due this week.
It was the Argentine president himself, Alberto Fernández, who made the announcement and celebrated that the agreement reached: “It will allow us to grow and meet our obligations.”
He noted that the country had a rope around its neck as a result of the indebtedness taken by the Macrista Administration. “We had a problem and now we have a solution,” he said.
Fernández, in a message of about five minutes, recorded at the official residence of Los Olivos, explained “that the understanding does not affect pensions, does not imply a labor reform and allows progress with public works and does not impose us to reach a deficit zero”.
It is expected that in the next few hours the Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán, will offer a press conference where he will explain the technical details, but Fernández’s message shows that “it does not restrict, it does not limit or condition, it does not impact public services, does not relegate our social spending and respects our investment plans in science and technology”.
“Furthermore, we will be able to access new financing precisely because this agreement exists. This understanding is expected to sustain the economic recovery that has already begun,” he added.
The Fernández government finally decided to make the payment of the first maturity of the year to the agency, equivalent to some 731 million dollars in interest, after being questioned by the Casa Rosada itself and being rejected by social organizations and movements.
The President concluded that “there was a very serious and urgent problem and now we have a possible and reasonable solution. It is time to unite in the solutions and not to divide ourselves in the problems”, while highlighting “history will judge who did what. Who thinks a problem and who solved it.
The agreement must now be approved in the Argentine Congress, after the approval, a year ago, of the Law to Strengthen the Sustainability of Public Debt, which makes it explicit that any financing program or public credit operation carried out with the IMF must must go through Parliament.
