The International Monetary Fund is aware of the bond swap of Anses and other official organizations announced by Economy and warned this Thursday that it must be carried out “so that it doesn’t add vulnerabilities in the future”, while he stressed that any measure must be accompanied by macroeconomic policies “coherent and narrow”.
In his first briefing as head of the agency’s communications secretariat, replacing the retiree Gerry Rice, julie kozak answered questions from journalists from all over the world. Kozack is familiar with the Argentine case because he closely followed the program negotiations from his position as undersecretary for the agency’s Western Hemisphere.
The official was consulted on the recent measures taken by the Economy, which oblige public entities, such as Anses, to exchange their dollar securities for securities in pesos, a measure aimed at narrowing the gap between the blue dollar and the financial ones and consolidating the reserves. This decision was widely criticized by the opposition, which considered it timely “retirement funds play”.
In this regard, Kozack said that “regarding the recent government decision on debt, we are aware of that decision, we are evaluating it according to the program objectives. From our point of view, prudent debt management is needed in order to improve the functioning of national bond and foreign exchange markets”.
However, it issued a warning: “But (management) hIt must be done in a way that does not lead to vulnerabilities in the future and must also be accompanied by coherent and contained macroeconomic policies”.
On March 13, the staff of the Fund and the Argentine authorities approved the fourth revision of the Extended Facilities program, which made the reserve target, hard hit by drought and other economic variables, more flexible. There was no official word on how much the reserve target would be eased, but it is estimated that there will be around $2 billion of relief by 2023.
The board is now analyzing the case so that, once the green light is given, they can be disbursed the 5.3 billion dollars for reserves. Kozack did not specify when the board would meet to discuss the issue.
The board meeting will be held soon and there is normally a period of time between when we reach an agreement with the coaching staff and when it is presented to the board. That meeting should take place relatively early and in accordance with the regular quarterly review cycle,” Kozack said.
From Economy they let it be known that the meeting would have been on March 31st and that the payments scheduled for this week have been postponed to axis release money.
The official once again highlighted the calls to the Government that had been expressed in the Fund’s press release on the occasion of the approval of the technical agreement, on the occasion of the analysis of the reserve target.
“Faced with a different macroeconomic context, mainly due to the recent drought, stronger political actions are now needed to safeguard stability. These stronger actions are also needed to address recent inflation and policy setbacks and keep the program anchored,” Kozack said.
Source: Clarin
