In the top ten coldest | The Argentine economy …

Argentina will record in 2019 the eighth most severe recession in the world. The contraction estimated by the International Monetary Fund will be surpbaded only by the declines registered in Venezuela, Iran, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua, Equatorial Guinea, Turkey and Sudan. Of the 195 countries surveyed by the multilateral agency, only a dozen will show negative results. This selection list is completed by Puerto Rico, Nauru, Ecuador and Barbados. IMF forecasts range from a 25% collapse in the case of Venezuela to a slight 0.1% decline in the Barbadian economy.

Optimistic estimates by the Fund's services for Argentina show a decline of 1.2%. The figure released in April represents a significant improvement of 0.5 point over the scenario anticipated by the agency's technicians at the end of last year. Forecasts make the country the second worst performer in the G-20 behind Turkish records.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde admitted yesterday that she underestimated the crisis that led Mauricio Macri's government to ask for a financial badistance program. "It is an incredibly complicated economic situation that many actors, including ourselves, have underestimated a bit when we started trying to arm the Argentine authorities with a program to remedy what had been critical for the economy, namely the budget situation, the current account, "acknowledged the Fund's Managing Director at an event organized by the American Enterprise Institute.

"I hope that the Argentine program will be successful, there are political developments over which we have no control and which will be the decision of the people," said Lagarde, referring to the presidential elections. In her speech, the French lawyer was surprised by the adoption of cambiamita mutatilla and described the "heavy legacy" as one of the main problems at the root of the crisis.

The organization's concern to mark the end of the crisis is increasing as the loan disbursements, conditioned to more than 56 billion dollars. Official statistics on industry, construction, wages and employment do not accompany their projections and show that the IMF's concerns go beyond the economic course. The forecasts are fed by the figures provided by each country but are prepared by the agency. In the case of Argentina, the Fund is systematically engaged both during convertibility and Kirchner 's governments, first as an optimist and then as a pessimist.

In accordance with the diagnosis proposed by the Treasury and the Central Bank on the end of the crisis, Lagarde estimated that "the most surprising component, but which is currently improving in the most recent figures we receive, is the 39, inflation, which instead of stabilizing and gradually decreasing, as we had predicted, it shows a resistance much higher than we thought, it begins now to decrease, but it takes more time than expected. "

In terms of GDP, the only country that, according to the IMF, will end 2019 with a fall of more than 10% will be Venezuela, which will post a contraction of 25%. Iran, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua and Equatorial Guinea constitute a second bloc, with product cuts ranging between 4 and 6%. The third group includes Turkey, Sudan, Argentina and Nauru, with recessions ranging between 1.1 and 2.5%. In last place are two IMF debtors: Ecuador and Barbados.