MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Cristina Fernandez denies any dollar clamp: in nine months paid out 80bn dollars

The Argentine president is in Peru for the ASPA meeting with Arab countries

Argentine President Cristina Fernández again denied the existence of money exchange restrictions over the purchase of dollars by explaining that “Argentina has already paid 79.8 billion dollars so far this year”.

The president made the announcement during a ceremony at Government House, on Monday, with the presence of local entrepreneurs who were granted low-rate loans and also confirmed that “so far this year Argentina’s trade surplus has reached to over 10 billion dollars, which represents a 38% year-on-year growth”.

However Cristina Fernández insisted on referring to the ongoing arbitrary dollar restriction policies and bashed the media and the opposition for calling it “a clamp”.

“They have all the right in the world to protest and dislike the monetary policies the government is implementing, but they should stop calling it ‘clamp’ and start looking for another name”.

“So far (January/September) we have paid 47.9 billion dollars in imports this year; and 11.2 billion dollars just to meet international debt payments. Plus, 5.5 billion dollars were gone overseas on tourist packages; and so on. In total, and since January, Argentina has paid 79.8 billion dollars, so there is no way that we could accept the media saying that there’s a “dollar clamp.”

“I think they should start looking for some other word since clamp does not correspond to reality. Furthermore ‘clamp’ refers to the Middle Ages torture instrument that immobilizes which is the opposite of what we are talking” said the president. However she admitted that before there was no need to state the purpose of the dollar-purchase.

“In no country in the world can you purchase 2 million dollars without saying the purpose” said CFK who added that “in any country if they catch with more than 1.000 dollars cash in your pockets, you are considered a drugs’ dealer”.

Following the ceremony the Argentine president left for Peru to participate in the III Summit of South American countries and the Arab League, ASPA that will be releasing a Lima Declaration on Tuesday. She expects to have a clause included referred to the Falklands’ sovereignty dispute.

Unasur will be represented by the presidents from Argentina, Cristina Fernandez, Brazil, Dilma Rousseff; Chile, Sebastian Piñera; Bolivia, Evo Morales; Ecuador, Rafael Correa; Guyana Donald Ramotar; Uruguay, Jose Mujica; Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos and host Peru, Ollanta Humala. Paraguay is absent because it has been suspended from Unasur and Mercosur following the removal from office in June of Fernando Lugo and his replacement and confirmation by the Senate of Federico Franco as president.

Hugo Chavez in the midst of a presidential campaign will be represented by his Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro.

On the Arab side those attending include: King of Jordan, Abdullah Bin Al-Hussein; the presidents from Lebanon Michel Sleiman and Tunisia, Moncef Marzouki, besides Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani from Qatar. Algeria will be represented by Abdelkader Bensalh, head of the Senate. The Arab League chairman Nabil El Araby, is also attending.