Argentina’s newly elected President Javier Milei said on Monday that his team is “working according to the guidelines” of the International Monetary Fund, which leaves the country with a debt of around 42 billion euros.
“Our lines of work are in line with the lines of the Fund”Milei emphasized in an interview with Miter radio, after the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, congratulated the President-elect via social media and expressed the desire to work “in close cooperation” on developing a plan that “guarantees the macroeconomic stability” of the country.
Argentina signed an agreement with the IMF in 2022 to refinance the $45 billion (about billion euros). ).
The financing program involves meeting quarterly targets – primary deficit, international reserves and monetary issuance to finance the Treasury – which Argentina will not be able to achieve by the end of this year.
‘The government is canceling the agreement because it has not achieved the budget target’recalled Milei, as the primary deficit was forecast at 1.9% of GDP at the end of 2023 and the government of Alberto Fernández will leave it at 2.9% according to the new president.
Milei also recalled that Argentina pledged not to use the Central Bank as a financing mechanism and ended up financing the equivalent of 6% of GDP “directly and indirectly” through the monetary entity.
Because the country considers the IMF adjustment program to be ‘dead’, it must correct its course ‘as quickly as possible’, starting ‘with a state reform, which will put the public accounts in order very quickly’.
“The adjustment must be made relentlessly. The big difference is that ‘the caste’ has made the people pay for it, and we will make ‘the caste’ and its associates pay for it.”he further argued, referring to the elite that has been in power in recent years.
Trying to reassure about the fate of the education and public health sectors, Milei remembered “They cannot be privatized because they are the responsibility of the provinces”Because Argentina is a federal state, he also denounced a “fear campaign” against him over the issue.
And he reiterated that his privatization program will be far-reaching: “Anything that can be in the hands of the private sector will be.”
The government official cited as an example the oil giant YPF, which was nationalized in 2012 under the Peronist presidency of Cristina Kirchner, as well as public media such as the official Telam agency and TVP television, “which have become a propaganda mechanism,” he further denounced. .
And he reaffirmed his desire to permanently eliminate the Central Bank, through the ‘dollarization’ of the economy.
“The currency will be the currency that Argentinians can freely choose. In principle, we will dollarize to get rid of the Central Bank.”; he said, without offering a timetable.
The 53-year-old ultra-liberal economist tempered some hopes and fears and assured that he would not immediately lift exchange controls, otherwise hyperinflation would result.
The newly elected president also announced that “in the coming days” he will travel to the United States – Miami and New York – and then to Israel, but privately, before taking power.
Javier Milei, from the La Libertad Avanza party, won on Sunday with 55.69% (14.5 million votes) against 44.30% (11.5 million votes) against the Minister of Economy, Sergio Tomás Massa, after a turnout of 76%.
Milei’s inauguration as Argentina’s president for the next four years is scheduled for December 10, succeeding Peronist Alberto Fernández.
Source: DN
