International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said on Thursday she is ready to aid Argentina and wants talks on a financing package to be finalized quickly. Lagarde said she instructed the IMF team to continue discussions on a loan program with the goal to “reach a rapid conclusion.”
Next Monday, 14 May 2018 four representatives from the Falkland Islands Government’s Natural Resources Department will be part of a UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office lead delegation meeting with the Government of Argentina, in Buenos Aires, to begin two days of discussions on fish and squid stocks in the South Atlantic, and the possibility of resuming the exchange of scientific fisheries data for the benefit of the region.
The Argentine Congress passed the government's capital markets reform bill on Wednesday, seeking to boost a troubled economy by reducing the power of market regulators and loosening restrictions on some funds investing in Argentina. Investors and economists consider the reform bill key to President Mauricio Macri's effort to boost investment in the country, whose capital markets are far smaller than regional peers.
Argentina Economy Minister Nicolas Dujovne is due to meet on Thursday with IMF chief Christine Lagarde to request a financing package to help shore up the struggling economy, officials said. Dujovne will also meet with a senior US Treasury official in a key step in the talks with the IMF, which are likely to last six weeks, his spokesman said in a statement.
After several days up in Argentina, the devaluation of the Argentine peso and the rise of the US dollar have had some impact on the other side of the River Plate, where the exchange houses of downtown Montevideo marked on Wednesday the value of the currency up to 31,70 Uruguayan pesos per dollar, a rise of 2.08% compared to Monday —the highest in five years—. For the Uruguayan government, the country follows the global trend and calls for calm, beyond the noise generated in Argentina, which is beginning a dialogue between the Finance Minister, Nicolás Dujovne, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington.
Argentina asked the International Monetary Fund for financing to help stem a run from the Peso to the US dollar that is sparking a surge in interest rates and threatening to derail the country's economic recovery. The sum requested is estimated between 25 and 30bn dollars, 500% Argentina's IMF quota and could be disbursed in two forms, a flexible credit line or a precautionary credit line.
Argentina's Internal Revenue Service, AFIP, announced it had received information on 35.000 overseas bank accounts held by Argentines, which should make it easier to control payment deadlines of the respective sworn statements on taxes, profits and assets.
A leading manager of the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht involved in corrupting government officials in virtually all Latin American countries revealed that millions of dollars in kickbacks were delivered in Argentina to pay for the natural gas pipelines network expansion contract.
The Argentine Peso closed slightly weaker on Monday, though analysts remained optimistic the government and central bank had curbed a run on the currency with a massive rate hike and lower fiscal deficit target last week. . The local currency opened stronger on Monday but closed down 0.41%, at 21.97 per U.S. dollar. The Merval stock index ended down 3.43% and traders said investors remained cautious.
“President Macri is not a political leader, he's a businessman, that's why he doesn't like to come out on national television; he should come closer to the people, he should be more political and less technical”. The comment belongs to Jorge Lanata probably the most outstanding investigative reporter in Argentina, and who heads the hate list of ex president Cristina Fernandez.