Latin American policy makers should withdraw fiscal and monetary stimulus to prevent their economies from overheating before turning to capital controls to limit foreign currency inflows, said Nicolas Eyzaguirre, the International Monetary Fund Western Hemisphere director.
The International Monetary Fund said Thursday it will send a team to Argentina again next month to continue work on revamping the government's discredited inflation measure, and will provide specific recommendations.
By Nicolás Eyzaguirre (*) Building on recent successes, Latin America now has a chance to raise its profile in the global marketplace. “There is nothing so joyous as a Mexican fiesta, but there is also nothing so sorrowful,” wrote Nobel-Prize-winning poet Octavio Paz, in The Labyrinth of Solitude. “Our fiestas are explosions. Life and death, joy and sorrow, music and mere noise are united.
IMF Managing Director is scheduled to visit Uruguay next month where he will meet President Jose Mujica and his economic team before flying to Brazil. Dominique Strauss-Khan will arrive in Uruguay from Panama and is not scheduled to visit Argentina, according to Uruguayan government sources.
IMF warned inflation is threatening South America but also admitted countries had a dilemma since increasing interest rates could further worsen the appreciation of local currencies vis-à-vis the US dollar.
The International Monetary Fund confirmed Argentina’s request for technical assistance on the elaboration of a Consumer Price Index (CPI). In a statement release by Nicolas Eyzaguirre, Director of the Western Hemisphere Department added “we are currently in contact with the authorities on planning the missions”.
China is resisting pressure to become a locomotive to pull the floundering US economy out of its hole, notably by stubbornly pegging its Yuan to the dollar, a senior IMF official said on Tuesday.
With many Latin American and Caribbean economies recovering faster than anticipated, the challenge for policymakers is ensuring a moderation in domestic demand to avoid overheating, the IMF said.
Given the high levels of global liquidity, Argentina should succeed in restructuring its 20 billion US dollars in defaulted bonds according to a senior official from the International Monetary Fund.
The recovery in Latin America and the Caribbean is advancing faster than anticipated but at different speeds across countries, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in its latest Regional Economic Outlook-Western Hemisphere report, which was launched Tuesday in Montevideo, Uruguay.