China and Argentina signed a US$ 9 billion currency swap agreement to boost the South American country’s foreign currency reserves, its central bank announced on Sunday.
Presidents Mauricio Macri of Argentina and Xi Jinping of China Sunday met in a post-G20 encounter at the former's residence in the outskirts of Buenos Aires to further develop the relations between their two countries.
Argentina’s central bank said on Thursday it hiked reserve requirements by 3 percentage points for the country’s largest banks, as it tries to keep its plan for reducing short-term debt from adding to already high inflation.
China’s role in Argentina’s foreign relations will be more balanced than during the Kirchner administrations, with a larger role played instead by the United States and European countries, the country’s ambassador to Beijing Diego Guelar said, claiming Chinese investment will have to be more competitive.
Argentina Central Bank President Alejandro Vanoli resigned Wednesday under pressure from President-elect Mauricio Macri, who plans to remove currency controls with reserves standing at a nine-year low.
Argentina's former Secretary of Culture José Nun said that current poverty in the country is similar to that which preceded the 2001/02 crisis, and underlined that he would never vote for the presidential incumbent candidate Daniel Scioli, who was handpicked by outgoing head of state Cristina Fernandez.
As China establishes itself as the world’s second largest economy and top trading nation, its currency, the renminbi (RMB), is also gaining popularity around the world. According to the People’s Bank of China’s 2015 Renminbi Internationalization Report, the RMB was the world’s 5th most used payment currency, the 2nd most used trade finance currency, and the 6th most traded currency in 2014.
Argentina and China entered a new phase of their relationship in July last year after upgrading it to a “comprehensive strategic association” and signing a battery of agreements, which include a 4.7 billion investment in hydroelectric dams, 2.09 billion in the renovation of the rail system and an 11 billion currency swap.
The central banks of Argentina and China on Thursday activated a bilateral currency-swap agreement, which meant that the Argentine central bank received an initial tranche of Yuan equivalent to 814 million dollars.