Mary Church
11/08/2020 18:59
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 11/08/2020 7:33 PM
The second mission of the
International Monetary Fund
arrives this Tuesday in Buenos Aires, to work fully on what will be the main guidelines of a
new loan
with Argentina, to get the dollars
to
repay the previous one
.
As soon as the team led by
Julie Kozack
, who is number two in the Department of the Western Hemisphere, and
Luis Cubeddu
, who heads the staff that closely follows the Argentine case, arrives with the rounds at the Ministry of Economy and will work together with the Minister of Economy,
Martín Guzmán
.
Unlike the trip they made in early October, this time Kozack and Cubeddu will not be alone: a team of
6 or 7 economists from the IMF technical team will
accompany them.
The intention is to advance as much as possible in the design of the new program to
refinance the payments of US $ 44,000 million
that are owed on the loan received between 2018 and 2019, during the government of
Mauricio Macri,
and, if necessary, receive some
additional dollars .
In the meetings of the next
almost two weeks
(which is the time that the IMF envoys will be in Buenos Aires), progress will be made on the specific guidelines of the program:
fiscal objectives
will be defined
, for example, which will be part of the multi-year goals that Guzmán will send to
Congress
and he wants them to be dealt with
before the end of the year
.
Discussions with the Fund will not only be about tax matters.
The
exchange gap
between the official dollar and the parallels (partially cut) worries the organization.
More structural issues will also be covered, an IMF spokesperson said.
"The dialogue will focus on the authorities' fiscal, monetary and structural agenda for the medium term in order to anchor macroeconomic stability and lay the foundations for
inclusive and sustainable growth
," he specified.
Once the most important aspects are closed, the Executive will also turn
the bill that gives legislative support
to the negotiation with the IMF.
According to official sources, it still remains to define what the level of detail will be that rule will have: if it will cover characteristics that are part of the program or if it will be an authorization for Guzmán to negotiate with the agency.
“After the debt restructuring, something more profound is coming, which is the definition of a
multi-year program
to
put in order and stabilize
the Argentine economy.
The context in which negotiations are being carried out with the IMF is an opportunity for all of us to agree on fundamental pillars for stability ”, said Guzmán last Friday when he visited the Toyota plant in Zárate.
The government was happy after the IMF mission that took place at the beginning of October: they felt that in those days more progress was made than expected.
Although they prefer to be cautious now about what will be the result of the exchanges that begin this Tuesday, in some private meetings the Government slides that the closing of the agreement could occur at the
end of this year or early 2021
.
Until now, publicly, the officials of the economic team maintain that the important thing is to have it by May 2021: that month,
US $ 2,100 million will
expire
with the Paris Club,
which the Government also seeks to renegotiate (this group of countries demands to have an ongoing program with the IMF to do so).
The intention of some officials is that the program with the IMF serves as another sign of
greater fiscal and monetary moderation
, a path that Guzmán has undertaken with more force in the last week.
However, others doubt if, even with a plan with established goals, it can work.
"With the previous government they had all the numbers and even so they
crashed the merry-go-round,
" some said
quietly
.
In full negotiation with the IMF, the elections in the United States that lead
Joe Biden
to the presidency
are not innocuous
: it is that once the type of loan that Argentina could access has been designed, it must be approved by the board of the international organization.
Within this directory, the main weight
falls on the US
: with
16%
, the representative of that country before the IMF board is the one with the greatest power.
The reading made by some officials of the Alberto Fernández government is that the United States will seek to play a role
as neutral as possible
in the negotiation: without playing for but not against, after having supported the largest loan disbursed for a country, which was the one that Argentina received between 2018 and 2019.
Even so, the eyes are still attentive to who may be the person who has a key figure: that of the
secretary of the US Treasury
Although the possibility of
Larry Fink
(CEO of the
BlackRock
fund
) had flown over the last few months as possible treasurer, with Biden the winner, those of
Lael Brainard, Gina Raimondo or Elizabeth Warren
are sounding more
.
Guzmán exhibits at the UNI Global Union
Before the arrival of the IMF technicians, Martín Guzmán will start the week with some definitions in the
UNI Global Union
.
It is an international meeting together with the former Prime Minister of Italy,
Enrico Letta,
to discuss the global role of finance in the post-pandemic economic recovery and the role of trade unions.
Under the title "Ensuring sustainable financial systems," Guzmán will speak at this virtual meeting between 11am and 12.30pm on Monday.
The seminar is organized by UNI Global Union, a global union space representing some 20 million workers.