IMF also concerned with the increase in the poverty rate in Argentina

Wednesday, April 24th 2019 - 09:15 UTC

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“We’re very conscious that an increase in poverty would pose serious challenges to achieving the objectives of the program,” IMF's Nigel Chalk told the FT

An official with the International Monetary Fund has declared that the increase in the poverty rate in Argentina could force the government to rethink its spending plans and “protect the poor.”

Nigel Chalk, the IMF's deputy director for the Western Hemisphere, told the Financial Times newspaper that further economic turmoil in Argentina could prompt ”a recalibration of social spending to provide more space for the government to act to protect the poor.”

“We’re very conscious, and so are the [Argentine] authorities, that an increase in poverty would pose serious challenges to achieving the objectives of the program,” Chalk told the FT in an article focused on how an increase in poverty could lead to more spending from the government and an increase in the deficit.

Argentina's poverty rate in the second half of 2018 rose to 32% – a rise of six percentage points from the same period the previous year – with 6.7% of citizens living in a state of extreme poverty, according to data from the INDEC national statistics bureau.

Categories: Economy, Politics, Argentina, International.

Tags: Argentina, Argentine economy, argentine poverty, economy, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Nigel Chalk, poverty rate.

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Enrique Massot
The real worry for the IMF is not so much the poverty rate, but the damaging effects of the economic situation on most of the population -- including the upper middle class -- and its consequences on the October presidential election.

The real powers in Argentina are worried that Macri is rapidly exhausting whatever political capital he may still have, and that his chances of getting re-elected president in October are getting scarcer by the day.

So is Nigel Chart going to talk to Christine Lagarde on the need to relax the tough “deficit zero” policy they imposed on the country so that their loyal pupil can have a fair chance in October?
Apr 24th, 2019 - 04:24 pm 0
:o))
@Enrique Massot

Actually, the IMF not only can lend but should also be able to sell bakrupt countries to recover IMF-Losses!
Apr 29th, 2019 - 02:47 am 0

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