President Alberto Fernandez stated that he kept “a very good meeting” with his counterpart from the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinpingand affirmed that the president authorized Argentina to dispose of 5,000 million dollars as part of the Swap mechanism, by offering a conference in Bali, Indonesia, where he participates in the G-20 Summit
“We had a good meeting and it’s not the first good meeting we’ve had. We talked about the issues that concern us as defenders of multilateralism. On the subject of swap, informed us that it authorized Argentina to dispose of 25,000 million yuanwhich is equivalent to 5,000 million dollars,” said the head of state in a statement to the press that he made this Tuesday together with the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, and Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero.
“Today, what President Xi informed us is that he had authorized the Chinese government for Argentina to freely dispose of 25,000 million yuan, which means 5,000 million dollars. It is great news, we are deeply grateful. President Xi explained to me that it was an absolute exception that China makes for Argentina and that is how we take it and appreciate it,” said the president.
In addition, Xi Jinping told Fernández “that has the challenge of including the 1.4 billion Chinese in modernityand what to do in an inclusive way, with social justice“.
“And I replied that it was the same thing that we want in developing countries. There were two specific issues that concerned us, the first, the issue of the expansion of the Swap, it is an issue that we have been working on for several months and we had no answer,” the president completed.
The second issue they dealt with “was a claim that we have for a debt that China maintains for the Kirchner and Cepernic reserves,” and he specified: “They admitted that this debt was pending and instructed the Development Council to quickly contact march to cover that debt”.
“It was a very good meeting, as meetings with President Xi usually are, and for us a source of joy to have been able to find an answer to two issues that concerned us,” he concluded.
For his part, Cafiero indicated that the President “had left instructions on what Argentina’s positions were going to be in the panels in which we were going to participate,” and that they were read by the foreign minister at the G20.
While Massa explained that “what the swap represents, or the expansion of the use of the swap for Argentina, is having 5,000 million dollars plus reserves when ordering the action of the Central Bank to strengthen our currency, in such a way that this not only swells, but also increases the capacity for action in the single free exchange market” of the national body.
“In the G20, the issue of surcharges and the use of drawing rights was also raised within the issues that the G20 is going to communicate as part of the new policies to be adopted,” he concluded.
