Sergio Massa has already joined the US Treasury Department for a key meeting with David Lipton. (Photo by Luis ROBAYO / AFP)
The Minister of Economy Sergio Massa has already done so entered the US Treasury Department for a key meeting with David Lipton and his collaborators, shortly before meeting the head of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva.
On a gray day Massa arrived at the Palazzo del Tesoro a few meters from the White House, with several of his collaborators in the economic area, including the head of the Central Bank, Miguel Pesce. He is also accompanied by the Argentine ambassador to the United States, Jorge Argüello.
she has not been seen, instead, to Silvia Batakis, the minister, who visited this same building a few weeks ago as head of the portfolio from which she was evacuated, e which is also in Washington.
Massa will see Lipton, the special adviser to Secretary Janet Yellen; Michael Kaplan, assistant secretary for the western hemisphere, and Andy Baukol, assistant secretary for international affairs.
Lipton is an official who knows the Argentine case very closely given its former position as number two in the IMF, when France’s Christine Lagarde headed the organization. At the time, the Fund loaned Argentina approximately $ 57,000 millionloan which had to be renegotiated later by Minister Martín Guzmánwhich closed a new program in January.
The results of the second revision of the program will be known today -The technicians have been working on it for weeks, the last one in Washington-and it is estimated that it will be approvedwhich will open the doors to a new disbursement of approximately 4,000 million dollars. To talk about the details and probably to seal the announcement, Massa and Georgieva will meet at 3 pm, Argentine time, at the headquarters of the Fund.
Massa will present his “macroeconomic ordering” plan to the Treasury. and it will ratify, as it has done in all sectors, that it will achieve the objectives of the program. The minister assures that he will not ask the United States for any kind of help with the Fund, unless some matter gets complicated.
Massa will seek to give the Bulgarian company confidence that it will meet the goals of the agreement, which includes a 2.5% adjustment to the fiscal deficit at the end of the year and approximately $ 5.8 billion in reserves at the Central Bank in December, as well as to remove energy subsidies as well.
It is possible that the dialogue focuses on what is coming, on how Massa will make the next cuts, what his plans are to lower inflation, what will be the pillars for growth and how much support he will have. The minister will also try to show that he has more political support than his predecessors, something that is of great interest to the Treasury and the Fund.
Massa will also raise an issue at the Treasury that he discussed in his meetings at the White House and the State Department. The minister wants the United States the green light for an automatic exchange of financial information agreement to detect about $ 100,000 million (according to government calculations) that Argentines may have in US bank accounts.
So far, AFIP consultations are carried out on a case-by-case basis, on request. The government demands that they can be executed automatically, that is, without having to treat each query in a particular way.
“We will also raise it on Monday at the Treasury because it is the specific place,” Ambassador to Washington, Jorge Argüello, told Clarín. This proposal to the US “will not remain indifferent to it and, on the contrary, I believe that we will be able to reach a quick agreement because the US has no interest in presenting itself as a refuge for tax evaders”.
However, experts living in this country who follow the issue doubt it will thrive because they believe the United States may doubt that there will be a “political use” of the issue in Argentina.
YN
Paola Lugone
Source: Clarin