MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Cristina Fernandez described Argentina as the ‘counter model’ of IMF and the world’s masters

The president pledged Argentina will continue to pay its financial obligations (Photo: DyN)

President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner ratified on Wednesday that Argentina will continue to pay all its financial obligations and described as “absolutely unfair” the ruling from Judge Thomas Griesa who favoured the hedge funds to the detriment of 93% of bondholders who joined the 2005 and 2010 debt swaps.

“We constitute the counter model of a world where the financial capital has become king and master and wants to punish us” stressed the president addressing the Argentine Industrial Union, UIA, annual conference which was held in Los Cardales, province of Buenos Aires and had as a special guest and speaker Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff.

“It’s unconceivable” that a court of New York should have ruled “against a country which restructured 93% of its sovereign debt and has been paying regularly. We have been paying on date since 2005 to the last cent with resources of our own and we'll keep on paying to honour our country's obligations”.

“Part of our self-esteem is to honour our obligations knowing that the country is the counter model of the IMF recommendations and precisely to show a greater willingness to reach an agreement and to pay we reopened the debt swap in 2010 until we reached 93% of restructured bonds”, said Cristina Fernandez adding that the Monday presentation before the Appeals court in New York was “another evidence of our good will”.

The president explained that “the heart of the Monday presentation was that what the New York court was demanding is not a ‘pari pasu’ which means equal conditions in legal terms, but rather ‘an absolute unfairness’ towards the 93% who did accept the debt swaps in 2005 and 2010”.

“Yes we were broke in 2003, but with faith and effort and the reindustrialization of the country and developing our domestic market we moved forward and have been successful. Maybe that is why we are the counter model” insisted the president.

Over 1,200 businessmen attended the two-day event which had UIA president José Ignacio De Mendiguren and Buenos Aires province Governor Daniel Scioli as speakers on the first day. On Wednesday most of the Argentine cabinet turned up at the event together with the president, among which Planning Minister Julio de Vido, Industry Minister Débora Giorgi, Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman, Science and Technology minister Lino Barañao and the Argentine Ambassador to France, Aldo Ferrer.