In 2020, an external debt of $ 22,800 million is due: Payment, default or renegotiation?

Concerns about the government's financial situation have increased in recent hours, driven by the size of the dollar and the Country Risk and doubts about the electoral future. The crisis and mistrust of international markets is largely explained by the uncertainty of who, who badumes next mandate in 2020you will be able to cope payment of debt maturities until 2023.

According to the figures coming from the LCG board based on data from the Ministry of Finance and the one published The chroniclerwhoever wins the election must decide how to deal with the payment of the sum of $ 156.220 million during this mandate, and first of all the $ 22.8 million expiring in 2020. In the management report issued at the end of March, Marcos Peña said that the outstanding debt in December 2015 amounted to 240,665 million US dollars, while according to the latest measure , the gross public debt amounted to USD 345.384 million.

On consultation with PROFILE, economist and former secretary of finance Guillermo Nielsen said the possibilities of paying the debt "depend on how the next government approaches its relationship with the financial world". "If the next government faces professional management, I do not see any problem, it would be that officials of the Ministry of Economy really know the subject, not that they learn," he said. -he declares.

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The situation, considers, "This is a consequence of the irresponsible debt of the first two and a half years of government." "Mauricio Macri has been given a debt free government and he has been directing Wall Street debt, which broke records, for two consecutive years," he said. the first debt restructuring in 2005 under the government of Néstor Kirchner.

Among the factors to be taken into account, he stressed the importance of paying attention to the attitude adopted vis-à-vis high-profile companies listed in New York, because "they are part of the composition of the company. 39, image of the future of Argentina's shares in international markets. "He said.

The current troubles, he explained, must be completed "with the loan record obtained from the International Monetary Fund". He added: "This will necessarily lead to a renegotiation with the Monetary Fund: this is the case for those who badume a new mandate".

Given the distrust reactions of the markets for the electoral future, since Cambiemos was Mauricio Macri himself who said the markets "doubt the conviction to continue on this path" and perceive that some "want to return to the past". Moreover, former officials of Kirchner sought to calm the climate by publicly dismissing any possibility that a return of Cristina Kirchner would imply a default in payment in 2020.

Kirchnerism seeks to calm the markets and refuses a default in 2020

For Nielsen, it is an "absolutely logical" reaction that the Kirchnerists reject before markets any possibility that this happens. "It's a way of clarifying that responsibility now belongs to the government, it's a way of saying"those who must score now, you are. "

For his part, the specialist in international law and author of "Argentina's debt is a crime " Alejandro Olmos Gaona, was convinced to hold the odds that the next government could pay the expected deadlines. "We have a public debt of $ 360 billion as of December 31, and maturities of nearly 100,000 expirations over the next two years: there is no possibility that the coming government can pay for it "he maintained.

In the words of Olmos Gaona, Mauricio Macri, Cristina Kirchner or a third candidate, who is elected "He will have to restructure himself". "Argentina will stop paying because it can not, not because it does not want to," he explained.

A.G./EA