Former president of Argentina Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has come under fire from Argentina’s Jewish community after referring to fruit imports from Israel.
Argentine farmers, anxious about an increasingly murky political outlook and economic turmoil, are turning toward soy over more expensive corn to cut costs, a shift that could impact next season’s harvest in one of the world’s top grain exporters.
Argentina's peso surged on Tuesday, pumped up by Wall Street traders cheering President Mauricio Macri's capital controls that are aimed at protecting the beleaguered currency. The peso closed 5.39% higher at 55.98 per U.S. dollar, traders said, its strongest level in a week after a near-record low close on Friday.
The Argentine government made official the authorization for a second weekly flight between the South American continent and the Falklands Islands, this time to Sao Paulo, Brazil with a stopover once a month, on both ways in the city of Cordoba. This means all is ready for the inauguration.
Argentine bond prices fell to record lows on Monday and the official and black-market pesos diverged after the country imposed capital controls in a bid to stem a currency rout that is sharpening the risk of default.
Argentina on Sunday imposed foreign-exchange controls on exporters as it closed out a week of financial uncertainty that saw a sharp drop in the peso. Exporters were ordered to seek permission from the Central Bank of Argentina before purchasing foreign currency, according to a decree published in the Official Bulletin.
The International Monetary Fund said it will stand by Argentina after the government authorized currency controls on Sunday in an about-face by President Mauricio Macri, who had previously lifted many protectionist practices of his predecessor, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
Argentina’s battered bonds were driven still lower on Friday after a credit rating cut from Standard & Poor’s triggered automatic selling mechanisms at big pension funds. Risk spreads blew out to levels not seen since 2005 while the local peso currency extended its year-to-date slide to 36%, forcing renewed central bank market intervention and intensifying worries about Argentina’s ability to honor its dollar-denominated debt.
Credit risk agency Standard & Poors announced on Thursday that it was slashing Argentina’s long-term credit rating another three notches into the deepest area of junk debt, saying the government’s plan to “unilaterally” extend maturities had triggered a brief default.
Argentine bond prices fell on Thursday and the country risk soared to levels not seen since 2005 after the government announced plans to extend maturities on an estimated US$ 100bn in debt, raising fear of a full-blown financial crisis.