Ezequiel Burgo
02/27/2021 22:00
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 02/27/2021 10:00 PM
Martín Guzmán
will travel to
Washington
in a few weeks
.
Close to him they explain that the plan includes meeting
Kristalina Georgieva
.
The last face-to-face meeting they had was in
Rome
, pre-pandemic and in the aftermath of the negotiation between Argentina and private creditors.
A lot of water passed under the bridge in that time.
Argentina with the agreement with bondholders saved paying US $ 41,000 million in the next five years.
Now the talks revolve around another issue: to see in what term and conditions - that do not harm the Government in the October elections - Argentina refinances the debt with the IMF (US $ 44,000 million).
The channel for dialogue between the parties lost power in recent months.
Noises were added to the conversation and Guzmán's voice is not as clear.
Cristina Kirchner prefers a 20-year deal instead of 10 years as Guzmán announced.
This is established by the Extended Facilities plan
.
"It is clear that the Ministry of Economy is carrying out the talks, but undoubtedly we are not going to spare any effort to strengthen Argentina's position and help the executive achieve the best negotiation for the country," they
say in
La Cámpora
, whose senators They sent a hawk-letter this week berating the Fund for the agreement it signed with Mauricio Macri.
Guzmán publicly made his position clear: to sign a 20-year agreement, the IMF statutes would have to be reformed and this is not the objective of this negotiation.
In Washington, the minister will put three issues on the table: lower the
interest
on the debt charged by the IMF, receive dollars for the issuance of
SDRs
and indicate the
duties
that he has been doing.
The first two songs are interesting for La Cámpora, the last one bothers Kirchner.
On Friday Guzmán asked his G-20 peers that the Fund modify the surcharges that it applies to their credits.
Argentina will pay US $ 1,337 million in interest to the agency this year
.
Guzmán wants the rate he charges to be the lowest, 1%.
Today it is 3%.
The interest taxi runs higher when the debt accumulates more than 36 months.
It is the cost of the Guzmán strategy: Argentina will have paid in 4 years only the equivalent of 15% of the loan in interest if the ball continues to kick with the IMF, the consulting firm ACM calculated.
The second topic is SDRs.
In the Government and Juntos por el Cambio, they estimate that some US $ 3,350 million would enter the Central Bank.
A backup for October.
Finally, the duties that Guzmán will exhibit in Washington.
Those of which La Cámpora does not speak or look the other way.
Here they go:
- in January there was a
fiscal surplus
.
For the first time since December 2019, revenue grew more than spending.
According to Eco Go, the fiscal deficit this year would be less than the one estimated in the Budget (4.5% of GDP), it projects 3.6%.
- in the first 23 days of February the Central Bank did not pass a penny to the Treasury (not in the year either).
Guzmán again obtained
positive net
financing
in February, reaching a total of $ 76,733 million in the first two months.
- the fortune tax, withholdings and the potential allocation of SDR will boost
revenue
.
- In February, the Central bought dollars net every day.
It ended up US $ 630 million above (although the IMF will note here that no reserves were built up and it is a crucial issue that the Fund looks at).
The Government thus gains degrees of freedom to travel the bridge to the harvest that begins at the end of March by stepping on the dollar.
Eco Go maintains that in this way it would reach December with an
inflation rate close to 40%
.
The Central Bank does not want risks.
He pointed out in the week that the economy could grow more if the government signed an
agreement with the FM
in the first half.
"If there was a minimum of political will, the Government could very positively surprise the market in the first half from the fiscal and monetary point of view
,
"
said the consulting firm 1826 in its latest report.
For Guzmán, the trip to the United States will be more than the economy and the photo with Georgieva.
Perhaps the justification for the Covid vaccine he received on January 29.
"All ministers generally need to take a breath because indoors the climate is always toxic," they
explain close to him.
Look also
Signing an agreement with the IMF before the elections would make the economy grow more, says the Central Bank
The G20 analyzes injecting money into the International Monetary Fund, a measure that would impact Argentina
