MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina Insists that Official Statistical Information is “Trustworthy and Solid”

Deputy Economy minister Roberto Feletti admits controversial relations with IMF

Argentina’s Deputy Economy Minister Roberto Feletti said the Government “will not accept economic policies to be dictated” by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and added that country's statistical information is “trustworthy and solid.”

Roberto Feletti said Monday that “we will not accept to be told that our statistics are not trustworthy and we will not allow our economic policies to be handled”.

However “Argentina is willing to get out of default and normalize relationships,” indicated the official. “A compulsory audit of figures that reflect reality does not seem necessary. Those types of audits on statistics are not acceptable,” said Feletti.

He also said that “intervening in a discussion regarding whether or not there will be an audit on the trustworthiness of Argentina hinders the process of normalization.” The Deputy Minister added that the country “is prepared to send all the necessary reports, just like all the G-20 countries.”

“We accept that the relationship with the IMF is controversial. When we did what the IMF suggested, we suffered an important crack. When we distanced ourselves from the IMF recipes, our country grew. This makes the relationship with the IMF bureaucracy very complex” Feletti admitted.

The Deputy Minister also explained that “if there were an accelerated inflationary process, there would be a deterioration of consumption and income and a situation of social conflict, which is not occurring.” He said that “in the entire World, official statistics have a shroud of doubt, because they say they reflect the governments' policies.”

“Regarding a set of forecasts that were made on the country, the statistics that the Indec offers, in general, are very trustworthy,” he added. Feletti reiterated that ”we are not in an acute inflationary process. Tendencies are consistent and there is not a deterioration in the population’s well being”.