MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina trusts it will reach understanding with bond holders’ end of March

Antonio Boudou said the Central Bank worked quickly and efficiently

Argentina will make an offer to restructure the 20 billion US dollars of defaulted debt by the end of this month, Economy Minister Amado Boudou said on Friday.

“We are at the final stage with the SEC,” Boudou said today in an interview with Buenos Aires-based Radio Mitre.

Argentina is awaiting a response from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on its proposal to swap bonds that were held out of a 2005 restructuring. A renegotiation of that debt would enable the country to tap international credit markets for the first time since its 2001 default on 95 billion USD of bonds.

Boudou revealed central bank President Mercedes Marco del Pont worked “quickly” to give the government access to reserves for debt payments.

Bank directors approved the transfer of 6.6 billion USD to the Treasury on March 1, the same day President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner announced two decrees ordering the use of reserves to pay debt. Boudou said the country has already used some of the money to pay debt owed to the Andean Development Bank.

“Marco del Pont did her job efficiently and very quickly,” Boudou said in the radio interview. “The bank is independent, but it’s an Argentine institution that has to work in coordination with others.”

Lawmakers at congress’s lower house finance committee agreed on Thursday to call Marco del Pont to explain the transfer of reserves.

Marco del Pont told reporters that she would appear before lawmakers as long as the bank’s charter allowed such an action.

Further on Boudou insisted that the government will keep on seeking ways to use the reserves in order to service debt payments and bolster development.

“We are working hard and on our way to let Argentine pay its debt.

We will not be put bumps on the road.” He went deeper in the matter and said that proposing not to service the debt is “an insane thing to consider,” and that President Cristina Kirchner will insist on the reserves use.

“The important thing here is for all the Argentines to do OK. We feel we are not being allowed to work, there are no counter suggestions,” Boudou declared.