Economy Minister Sergio Massa will leave this Sunday for Washington DC to begin his tour of the United States in search of investment and foreign exchange.
Massa, who is scheduled to arrive in the US capital on Monday, will travel accompanied by his spokesman, Santiago García Vazquez, and his international adviser Gustavo Martínez Pandiani, to begin his marathon of meetings with officials from the White House, the Treasury, businessmen and investors from the real economy, and from international organizations, sources from their environment told Télam.
In parallel, it will depart also this Sunday to Washington the entourage made up of the economic team from Massa, to start with Face-to-face meetings with the staff of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that will formally start the second revision of the agreement, in the frame prior to the meeting between Massa and the agency’s managing director, Kristalina Georgievawhich will take place next September 12 in the body.
In this scheme, it is expected that the Economy Minister Argentinian also meet with the rest of IMF management, including the first Deputy Managing Director, Gita Gopinath, and the director of the Western Hemisphere Department, Ilan Goldfajn, Monetary Fund sources detailed.
The Vice Minister of Economy and Secretary of Economic Policy, Gabriel Rubinstein; the head of Advisors to the Ministry, Leonardo Madcur; the Secretary of the Treasury, Raúl Rigo; the Secretary of Finance, Eduardo Setti; the director of the Central Bank, Lisandro Cleri; and the head of the Indec, who collaborates in the relationship with the organizations, Marco Lavagna; They are the men from Massa who will be received on Monday by the IMF team headed by the head of the mission for Argentina, Luis Cubeddu, to work on the second review of the program reached with the multilateral organization.
It will be an intensive day of work between both teams despite the fact that, paradoxically, that day is the Labor Day holiday in the United States.
The second revision of the program It will then require approval from the Board of Directors, which will trigger a disbursement of US$ 4.1 billion, necessary to strengthen reserves and meet payments with the international organization.
To this end, Argentine officials and Fund staff will work on the numbers for the second quarter of the year, the required quantitative goals (reserves, assistance from the Central Bank to the Treasury and fiscal deficit), as well as monitor the indicative goals and evaluate and they will analyze the eventual corrections that the Argentine government will have to carry out in the future through its economic policies in order to reach the annual goals.
About, Massa began to implement a series of policies to face a “fiscal order” in the State, anticipated that there will be no more financing from the Central Bank to the Treasury by the end of the year, faced a successful debt swap to reduce public financing needs for the third quarter, and sought to close sectoral agreements to accelerate the entry of foreign currency into the country.
“The teams, which have been working closely together virtually, will continue discussions on the macroeconomic outlook and on policies to strengthen stability and ensure compliance with the objectives of the program,” the IMF said.
Meanwhile, from the Massa environment they specified to Télam that the Minister of Economy would not be accompanied by a delegation to his meetings, but that the different officials who are in the United States “would join specific meetings, in which it is necessary their participation, depending on the technical issue in question,” they indicated.
Massa’s diary
As for Massa’s agenda, in addition to the meeting with Georgieva, a meeting with the Vice President of World Bank Operations, Axel van Trotsenburg; and with him head of the IDB, Mauricio Claver-Carone, who will request the acceleration of disbursements for the country.
Meanwhile, there will be meetings with the highest authorities of the US Treasury, with whom it will advance in the tax information exchange agreement between the AFIP and the IRS to detect irregularities and eventual tax evasion.
He is also expected to have meetings with White House officials, and with directors of the main companies that are part of the American Chamber of Commerce.
In Washington they foresee sectoral meetings with automakers Y firms in the Knowledge Economy sector, which will include interviews with executives from Volkswagen and Stellantis (an international automobile group, the result of the merger of the Italian-American Fiat Chrysler and the French Groupe PSA), General Motors and Amazon, among others.
On Friday the 9th Massa will move to Houston (Texas) to hold a day of work with oil companies and business chambers in the energy sector, and meetings are planned with Chevron, Exxon, Total, among others, as well as with energy companies in the lithium sector such as Livent, a firm that plans to start in the medium term strong investments in the country to export and supply the automaker General Motors in the United States.
Finally, Massa will launch, together with the Minister of Tourism, Matías Lammensa program to attract more tourists to Argentina, and will seek a greater commitment of the government of Joe Biden to go to the hunt for eventual Argentine evaders who bring their capital to the United States in undeclared accounts in the country (automatic information exchange agreements).
