IMF mission with one goal: support Macri

In addition, they will maintain regular meetings with private economists in joint and individual workings, as well as meetings with the main economic referents of the opposition. Including, again, Kirchnerism. Finally, they will again seek a hearing from the Treasury and BCRA for the latest revisions before returning to Washington. About 15 days later, they will publish a document of rigor. and on June 14, the "council" of the organization would meet to approve (or not) the next disbursement for the country. This is unlikely to happen because the board of directors approved the previous round in April, when Argentina presented worse financial and budgetary data than the second quarter of the year. When the money arrives, the IMF will have sent to the country since June last year about 44.6 billion US dollars. It would take about US $ 12.7 billion to complete the agreement, which, if future revisions were approved, would come before the end of the year; the completion of the $ 57.300 million of the total reserved contracts signed with the agency in 2018. The breakdown includes approximately $ 15,000 million in June 2018, $ 5,031 million in October and $ 7,619 in December of this year. So far, in 2019, US $ 10 870 million was collected in April. In theory, even using the US $ 6 million agreed with the IMF to contain the dollar, the government would have enough money to end its financial obligations until the first half of next year. It will be up to the next branch, to renegotiate or not the agreement signed last June (extended and amended in September 2018), to obtain an additional $ 10 billion and close the year 2020.

In the meantime, and thinking of the $ 5.4 billion disbursement that should be released before the second half of June, the Treasury and the BCRA are counting on the figures and data to be presented this week to the Cardarelli-led mission. . They will be better than those offered in the first quarter. The main positive result that will be presented is the budget surplus for the first quarter of the year, which reached $ 10,347 million; This trend will be reduced from April to June, but will remain positive. It will also show the positive evolution of the collection, which was almost related to inflation last April. The difference of more than 10 points between tax revenues and the rise in the CPI during the first quarter of the year was one of the major concerns of the first mission led by Cardarelli. To the point of having recommended to the Italian economist the generalization of VAT and the virtual intervention of monotributo as balancing mechanism of public accounts. And if that does not work, imagine a radical and politically incorrect change in taxes on exports. The fact that AFIP's revenues have improved and almost matched inflation in April, rebadured the Treasury that can now do better fundraising before Cardarelli and his collaborators. Mr Dujovne also hopes that better inflation data could be posted than what IMF envoys had to digest during his last visit to the country. As a first step, the Fund will witness Wednesday, April 15, the publication of the CIP; the government hopes that there will be a significant increase (nearly 4%) but less than 4.7% in March. It also creates a treasure. Visiting technicians will believe that in May, the evolution will fall to almost 3% and it will be even lower in June.

Closed the debates of these three topics, will remain to discuss the two most important chapters that must be closed with Cardarelli and the rest of the mission: to instruct the repurchase of public securities also with money from the Fund . In other words: implement the almost unlimited public support that the IMF leadership has given to Mauricio Macri's management for, without saying so publicly (for obvious reasons), make better use of its arrival of the lessons of the month. October and with some financial opportunities and exchange of success.

Among all the ideas that have been sent to the IMF, one that has more willingness to badyze in the organization is the possibility of a purchase of government securities at the price of the IMF. market, with the financing of the currency of the body; maintain prices and avoid that foreign exchange transactions have an extreme counterpart in the demolition of bond values; as was the case during the mid-April bullfight. For what is already known, and as this newspaper progresses, the executive can use less than US $ 9,000 million corresponding to those available to the Treasury. This money can be administered with ceilings of up to US $ 250 million a day, until the currency reaches US $ 51.45. This program must prosper and be maintained until the October 27 elections. But if the goal is not achieved, the government already has sign permission to reopen the negotiations and expand the amount and terms. Cardarelli wants to examine in situ the mechanism that the Argentine government wants to apply to place this money on the foreign exchange market. In other words, if the intervention is at market prices or, conversely, there is a tendency to subsidize the foreign exchange production of the financial system.

The other idea to be debated in Buenos Aires is the possibility of buying back an external debt in times of low demand and high supply; in particular the dollar securities with the closest maturity and the worst image they bring to the mosaic of local maturities. The intention would be that, once the operation carried out with the IMF's money, the profile of the Argentine debt improves and accompanies a reduction in country risk; and, therefore, there is more tranquility on the foreign exchange market. It is the project that fascinates the IMF the most. However, it is considered since Buenos Aires little effective and sophisticated enough to control the Argentinian currency market, often anarchic. Especially the race days.

The IMF's approval for Argentina to be able to use (with restrictions) money from the reserve to contain the race was a personal claim of Mauricio Macri to Donald Trump's administration; with his majority of votes, he made it clear that he could distort any contrary will of the IMF's board of directors. The request for Buenos Aires was made by US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin; who in turn twisted the arm of the number two body, David Lipton. This is the main hurdle for the Fund when it opened the floodgate of dollars to fight local bullfights. The position of the North American economist began to change, slightly and slowly, after the meeting of April 11 at the headquarters of the organization in Washington, with the president of the Central Bank, Guido Sandleris. Lipton, best known in Buenos Aires as an ideological architect of the explicit prohibition that the government of Mauricio Macri uses some of the body's money to prevent a possible escape of the dollar; He received the Argentinian official and spoke at length about the political situation as well as the exchange rate. From that moment, his vision of the reality of Argentine trade began to change; understand that the country and its demand for dollars do not obey the normal rules in the Orthodox Universities of the world. Finally, a call from Mnuchin finally convinced the stony official.

The new stage of the day inaugurated this week will depend on the approval of the mission led by Cardarelli today. But it is excluded that it is positive. It already has the endorsement of general manager Christine Lagarde and the irreducible Lipton. Cardarelli would be on this occasion a virtual auditor.