Guzmán moves forward with the IMF to sign an agreement as soon as possible, after his tour of Europe during which he received some support and several complaints

Economy Minister Martín Guzmán remains confident that he will be able to reach a technical agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a relatively short period of time, after the approval signals he claims to have received during his tour of Europe.

Although economic policy is increasingly oriented towards a strategy of price controls, the Palacio de Hacienda believes the relationship with official external creditors is good and provides a glimpse of an understanding this year whether the dynamics of the policy locale allows it.

In this sense, official sources indicated Infobae that after the passage of Guzmán through Europe, contacts between the economy and IMF staff were accelerated to advance the dialogue.

“It’s advanced, but not finished; if we don’t arrive at the end of May it will be as soon as possible “, clarified the source with reference to the technical negotiation, before building the internal and external consensus necessary to sign a 10-year deferral program for the payment of the debt of 45 billion USD contracted in the management of Mauricio Macri, as the government claims.

About, the possibility of recreating a scenario like the beginning of 2003 is not on the horizon, when a short agreement has been signed and without conditions of postponement of payments, until September of the same year, a new program was reached under the chairmanship of Nestor Kirchner.

The possibility of recreating this “bridge” of January 2003, signed under the troubled interim government of Eduardo Duhalde, “It would be very complex to debate and approve now at the board of directors”, which leads Kristalina Georgieva, the government source admitted. In Washington, they have not heard of this option either, yet.

For this reason, If an agreement is not reached before the first maturity of the capital with the IMF for 2000 million dollars next September, Economy lights a candle so that at that time the Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) are already on the market. additional Central Bank account to the entire world, which in Argentina’s case would be $ 4.3 billion. With these resources, the September and December installments would be paid for a similar amount, they said after Guzmán and the representative of Argentina appeared before the Fund, Sergio Chodos.

But first, there’s the $ 2.4 billion payment to the Paris Club, slated for a month from now, but with the option to postpone it for 60 days without officially defaulting. In this case, the President of the Club, Emmanuel Moulin, the dijo la semana pasada a Guzmán en París que se requiere, aunque no sea un acuerdo firmado con el FMI, al menos “una señal” taxativa del organismo que conduce Georgieva de que la negociación está bien encaminada, para postergar el pago for one year.

For this reason, they believe that Dialogue with the IMF should not be interrupted, even though Guzmán has received several complaints from his European peers to convert the rhetorical support he has received into concrete actions both within the Fund and the Paris Club.

As representatives of companies from their respective countries, the ministers of Germany, Italy, Spain and France asked Guzmán for answers on specific questions: in France for the payment of dividends from Danone and Alstom, in Spain for Telefónica and the decree of telecommunications as a public service, in Germany for the brake at the Chihuido dam – stopped a year ago – and in Italy for a situation similar due to the burial of the Sarmiento train, among others, according to official sources.

The long road to the SDRs

Guzmán also knows that he has succeeded in installing, with the support of Mexico, the debate on the further redistribution of SDRs that remain dormant in the treasuries of central countries after the IMF reached the global distribution of 650 billion this year.

In any case, the road to this distribution from the G7 to emerging countries will be long and thorny, as Georgieva herself admits, who, according to the government, has “done well” to leave this question for later, as she does. will deserve it. a debate within the Fund then the possible adaptation of the legislation of each country to contribute to this “common fund” for compensation of SDRs.

Meanwhile, Argentina could already appeal to the mechanism of borrowing SDRs from some countries on a bilateral basis, which the minister has discussed across Western Europe and in Moscow with his Russian counterpart. Anton Siluanov. It would not be the first time that the country has requested a bilateral loan, as Spain contributed its own resources in 2001, during the convertibility crisis.

For the time they gave him and the officials who greeted him, the start and end of the tour – in Germany and Russia respectively – were perhaps the most enjoyable moments of Guzmán’s trip.

In Berlin, they claim that there was an understanding attitude on the part of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s main collaborator, Lars-Hendrik Röller,, while they reiterated the keen interest of companies in this country for Argentine lithium.

In Moscow, they assure that The agreement was important (the Russian Sovereign Fund was seduced to invest in the country), except in the drink to accompany the dinners, since the officials of Vladimir Putin offered the Argentine delegation the wines produced in Crimea, but the minister Guzmán apologized for trying too much because he hardly drinks alcohol.

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