The Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán, travels to France this Monday to advance in the negotiations with the Paris Club, an association of countries to which Argentina owes close to US$ 2,000 million and with which a “time bridge” had been agreed in June of last year until March 31 to negotiate new terms of agreement.
In addition, you will participate in a ministerial meeting of the International Energy Agency (IEA)which will bring together the highest energy authorities of the leading countries to coordinate actions in the context of the global energy crisis, and will hold meetings with companies in the energy sector, reported the Palacio de Hacienda.
The minister is scheduled to meet on Tuesday with the president of the Paris Club, Emmanuel Moulinto resumer the terms of a new understanding that last year implied financial relief for Argentina of US$ 2,000 million.
Argentina made a payment of almost US$ 190 million to the Paris Club on February 25as part of the agreement reached in the middle of last year, for which another disbursement of US$227 million had already been made at the end of July, both on the capital account of the total debt, which implied the execution of payments for around US$ 420 million in a period of eight months.
In total, considering the exchange rates of the payment orders processed, the equivalent of US$226.9 million was paid on July 28, 2021 and US$189.6 million on February 25, 2022, which was discounted from a total of US$ 2,400 million that Argentina had to face on July 31, 2021.
“We have reached an understanding with the Paris Club to obtain a time bridge that allows us not to have to face a situation of non-compliance or default on July 31 of this year,” Guzmán had announced at a press conference last June 22, when making public the agreement with the group of countries that make up the Club.
According to Guzman, “Paying that amount – for the entire debt of US $ 2,430 million – would have been a blow to the reserves and therefore would have generated more exchange rate instability and more macroeconomic instability”.
“After constructive negotiations, this understanding has been reached that Argentina will have time until March 31, 2022 to resolve a more permanent restructuring with the Paris Club,” paying only a minor part of said debt, said the minister. .
In that sense, Guzmán’s objective will now be to renegotiate the agreement that the then Minister of Economy, Axel Kicillof, had signed on May 29, 2014 to pay a total of nearly US$ 9,000 million that Argentina owed to countries that were members of the Club.
The “time bridge” allowed the national government to advance in the negotiation with its main creditor, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the US $ 45,000 million that were taken between 2018 and 2019, during the mandate of former President Mauricio Macri and that should be returned in full between 2022 and 2023.
“Once we have an agreement with the IMF, talks will be resumed with the Paris Club to seek a restructuring that allows creating the structural bases of what the relationship between Argentina and the Paris Club will be,” Guzmán had assured last year. past.
According to the annex to Decree 412/2021, which established “the deferral of payments of debts contracted by virtue of the Bilateral Agreements signed with the countries in the Paris Club”, Argentina must renegotiate the payment of nearly US$ 2,000 million owed to 24 agencies and banks in 16 countries: Germany, Spain, France, the United States, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Canada, Israel, Italy, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.
