The Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, will meet this Friday Brent Neimanan envoy from the United States Treasury, to resume talks on adjustment plan, the agreement with the IMF and the state of progress of the reforms. The official met with the head of the Central Bank, Santiago Bausili, on Wednesday and will continue with other representatives of the government and the private sector.
“Caputo will meet Neiman tomorrow (Friday),” they confirmed at the Palazzo del Tesoro. Neiman is the Undersecretary for International Finance of the US Treasury, an intermediate position in the organization chaired by Janet Yellen, and her arrival coincides with the attempt to resume the stalled reforms, with a new bill and the DNU, which yesterday suffered another blow in the Senate.
In Washington they are closely following the direction of the shock plan. Although sources close to the meeting claim that the visitor is only a “mid-level” technician, this will be the outcome fourth meeting in recent weeks Caputo has held talks with officials from the Treasury, the equivalent of the Ministry of Economy in the United States and the main shareholder of the Monetary Fund.
Bilateral relations, economic reforms and cooperation with multilateral organizations were addressed in these talks. On Tuesday, the minister reiterated that he is talking to the IMF to develop a new program that expands lending to Argentina and that it is open to “give some more money”although spokeswoman Julie Kozack said last week that it was “premature” to talk about this issue.
The government has agreed to present a roadmap at the end of the month to lift restrictions and abandon the regime dollar mix (80% to be settled at the official value and 20% in cash with settlement). But the President recognizes that he still needs reserves. “I prefer to play it safe, as they say in the IMF, and aim for the target in the middle of the year. “If they give me $15 billion, I’ll open it tomorrow.”he said this week.
The Fund sees “good progress” in its decline, but called for the burden of adjustment not to fall disproportionately on vulnerable sectors. The same precaution that Yellen had raised two weeks ago during the meeting with Caputo at the G20 summit in Brazil. In this context, the minister announced this week the opening of imports to lower the prices of the basic basket.
Both the IMF and the Treasury have concerns about the “sustainability” of the adjustment plan. The deputy director of the Fund, Gita Gopinath, During his visit to the country in February, he insisted on the need for the government to gain political and social support, as well as progress on income tax refunds, eliminating tax exemptions and maintaining the real value of pensions.
Milei took note of the mission: days later he launched a pact with the governors to approve his laws in exchange for tax benefits and this Thursday the new draft Omnibus Law began to circulate among them with delegation of limited powers, privatizations and a new retirement formula, and a tax package that provides tax relief to the Provinces with the reinstatement of profits.
In the midst of the American primaries that brought Donald Trump back into the ring, Caputo met last week, as part of the IDB’s annual meeting in Punta Cana, with the former US senator and advisor to President Biden, Chris Dodd, the deputy assistant secretary of the US Treasury, Michael Kaplan and with the director of the Treasury Department of the Western Hemisphere, Alejandro Mares.
Who is Niemann?
At Treasury, he works on a broad range of international economic priorities, including our response to Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine, cross-border debt issues, IMF governance and programs, global financial regulation and oversight, resources digital and cross-border payments, and important bilateral issues with various countries.
Before joining Yellen’s team, he taught economics at the University of Chicago in macroeconomics, international finance and trade. And previously, he was an international financial economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers and worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, McKinsey and Company and the McKinsey Global Institute.
He was also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research center of Harvard University.
Source: Clarin
