MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Macri at G20 to represent the “new” Argentina and after crucial investments
Macri has meetings scheduled with Xi, Putin, Merkel and probably UK prime minister Theresa May 
The full team is scheduled to be ready for talks on Thursday and is headed by finance minister Alfonso Prat-Gay and foreign minister Susana Malcorra. 
The Argentine leader needs to confirm promised investments from China and Russia in infrastructure and energy Argentine president Mauricio Macri is off to Hangzhou, China for this first G20 summit where he is expected to hold bilateral talks with the host Xi Jinping, Russia's Vladimir Putin, Germany's Merkel and probably UK prime minister Theresa May.
September is a crucial month for Macri, not only to turn around the Argentine economy, following on his promised second/half of the year recovery which has yet to surface and a possible cabinet reshuffle including foreign minister Susana Malcorra following her bid to succeed Ban Ki/moon at the UN seat.
But before landing in China, Macri is calling at Qatar whose leader, Sheik Tamim bin Hamad Al Thanim was recently in Buenos Aires with an interest in investing in Argentina. The Doha day visit with Macri's samll delegation is expected to take place in the same friendly spirit that a month ago in Buenos Aires when the Argentine president cut short the inauguration of his Peruvian peer to spend time with the distinguished visitor-investor.
The president's advance party in a private rented aircraft includes wife Awada, his foreign affairs advisor Fulvio Pompeo and bodyguards, while the rest of the delegation is flying directly to China. The full team is scheduled to be ready for talks on Thursday and is headed by finance minister Alfonso Prat-Gay and foreign minister Susana Malcorra.
The talks with China and Russian leaders are crucial for the confirmation of several billion dollars investments mainly in infrastructure and energy, but Macri is also scheduled to meet India's prime minister Narendra Modi, South Korea's prime minister Hwang Kyo-ahn and Australia's Malcolm Turnbull. Argentina must make a good showing since in 2018 it will be hosting the G20 summit in Buenos Aires.
Macri's return to Buenos Aires via San Francisco will be on 5 September, while in New York, next week, begins the decisive rounds for Ms Malcorra's ambition to succed Ban Ki-moon.
However whether Malcorra is finally elected, or not, a big question mark still, a cabinet reshuffle could confirm her as minister, (all admit she has been most successful in placing Argentina back in the world, beginning with Obama's visit last March) or even as ambassador in Madrid where her husband lives. Or even a high UN post in Geneva. Argentina meantime has also lowered the profile of another candidacy, ambassador in Austria, Rafael Grossi who has been positioned as a serious candidate to head the UN Atomic Energy international organization, with Western countries support.
Possible successors of Malcorra if she finally leaves are the current finance minister Prat-Gay, who always coveted the post; advisor Fulvio Pompeo or Carlos Foradori, the current deputy foreign minister who actually runs everyday business while his boss travels the world to reinsert Argentina and collect support for her UN seat ambition.
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Read all commentsThe New Argentina, lyrics by The Who
Aug 31st, 2016 - 01:31 pm 0There's nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Are now parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight
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On October 17, 1945, Juan Peron addressed 300000 people from the balcony of the presidential palace, promising a “New Argentina”.....
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
- lyrics, “Won't Get Fooled Again”
New Argentina, my donkey.
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At least Macri has a little more class than the cartoon CFK, and is less likely to insult the Chinese:
2015: “During a visit to China this week, Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner paused from her effort to attract Chinese investment to her country, in order to set what may be a new record in racially offensive efficiency: she managed to insult a fifth of humanity in less than a hundred and forty characters. Noting that hundreds of Chinese visitors had shown up to see her at an event in Beijing, she tweeted, “Más de 1.000 asistentes al evento… ¿Serán todos de ‘La Cámpola’ y vinieron sólo por el aloz y el petlóleo?” In other words, she replaced R’s with L’s in “el arroz y el petróleo”—rice and petroleum—and asked, “They came just for rice and oil?” as if speaking with a cartoonish Chinese accent. ”
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/cristina-kirchner-misadventure-china
Yes, CFK did indeed correctly and insultingly present Argentina to the world as the Cartoon Country
Argentina is unlikely to attract serious overseas investors, other than banks who buffer their losses by overcharging customers, due to the 15M Peronistas who still infest the fabric of society.
Aug 31st, 2016 - 05:56 pm 0Until they are effectively neutralised the country is screwed.
Article: -- explaining why investors avoid Argentina --
Aug 31st, 2016 - 07:17 pm 0“ La Argentina, un país...con muchos aplazos y sin atractivo para invertir
” Los malos resultados en varios indicadores, como la inflación, el crédito y el ritmo de las exportaciones, hacen que las empresas decidan no volcar su dinero en el mercado local; es la peor performance de la región.....“
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Another article ” “Una empresa extranjera no invierte porque no se puede llevar sus ganancias”
http://www.infobae.com/2015/09/01/1752221-una-empresa-extranjera-no-invierte-porque-no-se-puede-llevar-sus-ganancias/
Article: Why Argentina doesn't invest in the electrical energy sector:
http://www.infobae.com/2015/09/01/1752221-una-empresa-extranjera-no-invierte-porque-no-se-puede-llevar-sus-ganancias/
Argentine governments also have the bad habit of beating up (or outright stealing) existing companies (with a presence in Argentina) that don't make the sort of investments that the government would like to see. And that bad habit exists even today:
http://www.infobae.com/2015/09/01/1752221-una-empresa-extranjera-no-invierte-porque-no-se-puede-llevar-sus-ganancias/
Other than spending a lot of money on public relations, the Macri government has really done very little to make substantial changes that might actually some day put Argentina on an investor's radar. Serious investors who might otherwise consider long term commitments tend to have long memories, and anyone with such a memory knows that Argentina jumps quickly from one profit-destroying policy to another, and from one debilitating economic crisis to the next, and in doing so inevitably causes enormous losses to foreign investors.
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