The newly elected president of Argentina, Javier Milei, stated this Monday that his team is working “with the guidelines” of the International Monetary Fund, with which the country has a debt of about 42 billion euros.
“Our lines of work are in line with the lines of the Fund,” Milei highlighted in an interview with radio Miter, after the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, congratulated the president-elect through the networks. social issues and He was willing to work “in close collaboration” to develop a plan that “guarantees the macroeconomic stability” of the country.
Argentina sealed an agreement with the IMF in 2022 to refinance the debt of 45,000 million dollars (about 41,000 million euros) that the South American country had contracted in 2018 and which, with accumulated interest, is now around 46,000 million (about 42,000 million of euros). .
The financing program includes the fulfillment of quarterly objectives – primary deficit, international reserves and monetary emission to finance the Treasury – that Argentina is on track to not meet at the end of this year.
“The Government abandons the agreement because it did not meet the fiscal goal,” Milei recalled, since by the end of 2023 the primary deficit was planned at 1.9% of GDP and the Government of Alberto Fernández will leave it at 2.9%. , according to the new president.
Milei also highlighted that Argentina committed to not using the Central Bank as a financing mechanism and ended up financing the equivalent of 6% of GDP “directly and indirectly” through the monetary entity.
Since the IMF adjustment program is considered “dead”, the country must correct its course “as quickly as possible”, starting “with a reform of the State, putting public accounts in order very quickly.”
“The adjustment must be made, inexorably, the big difference is that ‘the caste’ 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 in power in recent years.
Milei sought to reassure about the fate of the education and public health sectors, arguing that these “cannot be privatized, because they are the responsibility of the provinces”, Argentina being a federal state, also denouncing a “campaign of fear” against them. regarding this topic.
And he reiterated that his privatization program will be far-reaching: “Everything that can be in the hands of the private sector will remain.”
The official gave as an example the oil giant YPF, nationalized in 2012 under the Peronist presidency of Cristina Kirchner, but also public media such as the official Télam agency and TVP television, “which have become a propaganda mechanism,” He also reported. .
And he reaffirmed his desire to definitively eliminate the Central Bank, through the ‘dollarization’ of the economy.
“The currency will be the one that Argentines freely choose. Basically, we will be dollarizing to get rid of the Central Bank”; he said, without presenting a calendar.
Dimming certain hopes, as well as fears, the 53-year-old ultra-liberal economist assured that he would not immediately lift exchange controls, otherwise hyperinflation would occur.
The new president also announced that he will travel “in the coming days” to the United States – Miami and New York – and then to Israel, but privately, before taking office.
Javier Milei, of the La Libertad Avanza party, won on Sunday with 55.69% (14.5 million votes) of the votes against the 44.30% (11.5 million votes) obtained by the Minister of Economy, Sergio Tomás Massa, after a 76% participation.
Milei’s inauguration as president of Argentina for the next four years is scheduled for December 10, succeeding the Peronist Alberto Fernández.
Source: TSF
