The economic team will face two key missions in the next few days to try to alleviate the financial situation.
Minister Sergio Massa will travel to India on Wednesday
to participate in the G20 finance ministers meeting, while other officials will go to Washington to meet with IMF representatives.
At the G20 meeting, the slowdown in the world economy and the increased indebtedness of developing countries will be analyzed.
Within this framework, the head of the Palacio de Hacienda will maintain bilateral agreements with various peers, including Fernando Haddad, from Brazil, with whom he has pending
progress on a mechanism to finance imports.
Massa already met last week with the Indian ambassador, Dinesh Bhatia, to expand exports to the Asian giant - Argentina's fifth largest trading partner - and promote the use of local currencies in bilateral trade.
They also talked about the G20 summit, which will be chaired by the Indian government with a focus
on financial relief for the countries most indebted by the main creditors
, including the Paris Club.
The rest of the economic team, headed by Gabriel Rubinstein and Leonardo Madcur, will travel to Washington to meet with the IMF mission on Friday.
They are seeking the agency's approval of the agreed goals, which will be discussed by the IMF board at the end of March.
The Government
needs to unlock the disbursement of US$5.3 billion to meet the payment of US$2.7 billion due on March 21 and 22
Negotiations began more than a week ago with the visit of a technical mission to Buenos Aires, where the Ministry of the Economy showed that it had "overachieved" the goals for the third quarter of 2022. In that period, the primary deficit was reduced to 2
. 4% of GDP
(not including debt interest) deferring payment of expenses and net reserves added
US$ 5,000 million
with the help of a new soybean dollar and strong restrictions on imports.
The most complicated chapter of the fourth review of the Fund will be the roadmap for 2023, an itinerary that began with short circuits due to official pressure to make the agency's demands more flexible in the face of the impact of drought and war.
Massa's team would seek a waiver amid the unstoppable drain on reserves
, accelerating inflation and signs of stagnant activity in an election year.
"What the Fund is proposing is that we honestly discuss the impact of the drought. We see with intelligence on the part of the technical staff beginning to see what the impact of the drought is, but we are also aware that we have to do more effort than others," Massa said on Saturday in an interview with CNN in which he assured that the agreement with the agency is enforceable.
"Yeah, sure, yeah, yeah," she argued.
In this way, Massa differed from Máximo Kirchner, who
at the end of January warned that the expiration date is "unpayable"
and insisted on renegotiating the agreement due to the consequences of the war.
"The drought, the net payments to the IMF, the longer maturities for the restructured debt and the typical dollarization of an election year will put greater pressure on the reserves," said the Scalabrini Ortíz Study Center (CESO).
So far this year,
the Central Bank has sold more than US$1 billion in the exchange market
.
The minister has still not been able to close a credit guaranteed with titles with foreign banks for US$ 1,000 million, an operation that was complicated by the sharp fall in Argentine bonds in foreign currency.
And he received
the agency's disapproval of the repurchase of debt in dollars
with reserves that began in mid-January.
"The concern about the lack of dollars continues, since reserves continue to be sold every day, and
there are US$ 3,300 million missing
to reach the goal of the end of March with the IMF. For now, there are only official reports without many details of a Repo for US$ 1,000 million. Other possible alternatives are a Soybean Dollar 3, more CEPO and/or more disbursements. The goal
is the least (a waiver could be requested), the market is concerned about the film"
, explained a report from FMyA.
The Government promised this year to lower the primary deficit to 1.9% of GDP, with a monetary issue ceiling to assist the Treasury of 0.6% of GDP and
the accumulation of US$ 4.8 billion in reserves
.
Although inflation is not a goal, the acceleration in January to 6% monthly puts more pressure to contain the excess pesos and its impact on the exchange rate gap.
For this reason, Massa analyzes measures to "sterilize" the surplus monetary issue.
AQ
look also
Kelly Olmos insisted on 30% biannual parities and acknowledged: "The January number was a difficult impact, but we can meet the goals"
They anticipate that this year job creation will slow down and consumption will cool down
