Due to the increase in the interest rate, the surcharges for the high amount of indebtedness and the increase in the debt itself,
on February 1 Argentina must pay the International Monetary Fund US$ 710 million.
It is the highest figure since the Fund granted the loan to Argentina in 2018
.
And the projections indicate that this year in total the interest account with the IMF could
be around US$ 3,000 million versus the US$ 1,746 million
that were paid in 2022. And much higher than the US$ 1,347 million in 2021.
In Special Drawing Rights, the currency in which the IMF carries out its transactions,
the interest payment for February 1 is US$ 526 million SDRs
.
Last Friday 1 SDR was equal to US$1.35.
In turn, in DEG,
the debt went from US$29.260 million at the end of December 2021 to US$34.216 million
, an increase of 16.4%.
Interest payments during 2022 were increasing:
US$367 million in February and a similar number in May, but rose to US$452 million in August and US$563 million in November
.
And now in
February they would add US$ 710 million.
This increase in the interest account is explained because
the capital of the debt was not reduced but increased
due to the new disbursements made by the Fund to cancel successive maturities and interest payments.
These disbursements were higher than the maturities themselves and thus, for example,
the debt with the IMF that at the end of 2021 was US$ 40,952 million
,
a year later (December 2022) amounted to US$ 45,707 million,
an increase less than the increase in SDRs because the price of the IMF currency in dollars was reduced.
The other key factor was the increase in the interest rate and the surcharges that are applied to the amount owed, which more than quadruple the total rate that the country must pay for that debt.
.
With the February 1 payment, Argentina will have paid the IMF interest for US$6.49 billion.
Of that total, US$ 1,381 million were paid during the Mauricio Macri government and
US$ 5,109 million Currently, the Argentine debt with the IMF is equivalent to 1,073% of the quota.
These surtaxes are the ones that Argentina has been demanding for long months
to be repealed, a position that has the support of other countries and international economists, but until now the IMF has not accepted this claim, despite the fact that the goals agreed with the international organization.
Those who call for removing the fees and surcharges argue that they punish countries that are experiencing greater difficulties and need more time to recover and repay the loan.
In addition, they disproportionately affect low-income countries and those in a crisis situation - exacerbated by the pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war and the international crisis - because they are applied based on the quotas they have within the IMF, which are lower .
It is also argued that the magnitude of the loan in relation to Argentina's quota – which exceeds 1000% – reveals that it was a “political” loan that helped finance capital outflows.
NS
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