Officials of the Ministry of Economy traveled to Washington to close the agreement with the IMF

After back and forth, a delegation from the Ministry of Economy finally traveled to Washington to close a new technical agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). A conversation between Economy Minister Sergio Massa and the head of the international credit agency, Kristalina Georgieva, would have been key to unblocking the talks. That dialogue gave Massa the necessary indications to conclude that a technical agreement could finally be reached on Friday, according to sources in the economic team. Telam. Thus, the Deputy Minister of Economy, Gabriel Rubinstein; the Chief of Staff of Advisors, Leonardo Madcur; and the vice president of the Central Bank, Lisandro Cleri, left for the US capital to negotiate the clauses of the agreement with the IMF and access new resources to strengthen the international reserves of the Central Bank.As for the advances that the Government could achieve, from Washington circulates the rumor that the figure would reach 8,500 million dollars, although Economy Ministry sources consulted avoided giving details in this regard. The outstanding funds of the program that Argentina maintains with the IMF for the second half of the year total approximately 10,400 million dollars. Argentina had requested a partial or total advance of them, in the middle of the election year and due to the effects of the drought, which meant a loss for the country of around 20,000 million dollars. If things go well, Massa himself would travel to the US to finish signing the agreement and this Friday could be signed the so-called ‘staff level agreemernt’ (SLA), which would then have to be approved by the Board.The understanding would bring greater calm to the markets in the middle of the current electoral campaignWhat would remain pending resolution is whether the technical agreement will be treated by the Board before the summer recess, since the formal period from the confirmation of the understanding until it is dealt with by the highest authority of the agency usually takes about two weeks. The Ministry of Economy had requested to pay the maturities of the current month for 2,700 million dollars at the end of July, precisely pending an agreement with the agency. This week a key fact of the progress of the public accounts will be known, the fiscal deficit, which will allow us to know if the decline in spending continued in real terms. This data, among others, is part of constant monitoring by the agency’s technical staff. However, due to the deep drought, most of the goals contemplated in the agreement reached in March 2022 became obsolete, so hence the reformulation that is being negotiated and that would be about to materialize. Strictly speaking, the ongoing negotiations between the IMF and Argentina to reformulate the program signed in March 2022 have been going on for almost three months. The head of the Economy Ministry had indicated days ago that Argentina “is very close” to reaching an agreement with the IMF, while remarking that this understanding would be achieved “by defending an idea of a country of development with inclusion, without resigning sovereign capacity and without surrendering to the altar of fiscal adjustment.”

Original source in Spanish