Economy Minister Sergio Massa assured this Wednesday in Washington that the resources that Latin American countries allocate to finance the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which later return as sources for infrastructure works, should be considered as “investment for development” and that “it is absurd” that other multilateral organizations compute it as a deficit, since “that condemns our countries to be poor”.
The head of the Palacio de Hacienda participated in the discussion of Finance Ministers organized by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), within the framework of the 56th meeting of the Network of Central Banks and Finance Ministries of Latin America and the Caribbean.
During his presentation, Massa referred to the challenge that the war in Ukraine represents for Argentina, stating that it implied “having to duplicate efforts to meet the objectives of the reserve accumulation program and fiscal goals of 2.5% for this year, basically due to the impact represented by the rise in energy”.
In this sense, Massa assured that “lWar poses a challenge for our region, but also an opportunity.”because the continent is the producer of 80% of the proteins consumed by the world and has vast energy resources.
“There is a challenge from the IDB and the multilaterals to look at regional infrastructures so that the resources we have are transformed into wealth for our region,” he added.
The head of Economy assured that the continent “has the opportunity to bet on infrastructures so as not to be suppliers of raw materials but raw materials with added value.”
Massa called on the multilateral organizations not to compute as a deficit the investment for development carried out by the countries.
In this regard, he stated that the resources that Latin American countries allocate to finance the IDB, which later return as resources to finance infrastructure works, “should be considered as an investment for development” and that “it is absurd” that other multilateral organizations count it as deficit, since “that condemns our countries to be poor”.
In the same vein, he argued that “If multilaterals are really intended as instruments for development, it is key that what we invest in development from our public accounts be computed as development investment and not simply taken as a requirement for meeting a fiscal goal”.
Also participating were José Antonio Ocampo, Minister of Finance and Public Credit of Colombia; Rogelio Ramírez de la O, Minister of Finance and Public Credit of Mexico; Azucena Arbeleche, Minister of Economy and Finance of Uruguay; and Nigel Clarke, Minister of Finance and Public Service of Jamaica, among others
