The government expects $ 3,900 million from the IMF and will have to pay $ 5,200 million in two months

The US tour gave new life to Sergio Massa and his economic team. They believe that the meeting with the front page of the Treasury and the head of the IMF has produced a positive balance, although negotiations are still open. In fact, a few hours after landing in Buenos Aires, his team resumed talks with staff on Tuesday to approve the second revision and reach an outlay of 3,900 million dollars.

The most optimistic of the delegation that went to Washington hope that a signal from the Fund will arrive on Friday. But the procedure for receiving the disbursement implies the completion of a series of previous steps, starting first with the agreement between technicians and Economics (relationship staff) with the evaluation of the administrators and their recommendations.

The government needs the funds to tackle a demanding deadline schedule with the agency. On 21 and 22 September, capital payments fell to US $ 2,600 million; on October 6, $ 1.2 billion; on October 14, $ 630 million; on October 28, $ 660 million; and on November 1, an interest payment of $ 500 million. In total, they amount to $ 5.590 million, which must be partially covered by the accumulated stock of SDRs.

In March, Argentina agreed on an Extended Structures program with the IMF for $ 45,000 million in 11 disbursements through 2024, which included an initial advance of $ 9,800 million. Since that first transfer of SDRs, analysts estimate the Central Bank is holding nearly $ 4 billion. It is that in June part of those funds were intended to cover payments due to the delay in the arrival of the disbursement scheduled for that month.

The greatest difficulties will be inside the third and fourth revision, where the Government may have to resort to a derogation to meet the targets due to the low level of net reserves and the increase in the deficit in the last months of the year. If the third revision is approved, the Central Bank will have $ 5.8 billion starting December 10 to reach maturities of $ 2.6 billion between December 21st and December 22nd.

In this context, any delay in disbursements could leave the Central Bank with a negative reserve level, as happened last February. “Hence the urgency to anticipate the liquidation of exports to get closer to the number of net reserves committed to the agreement for September”, reads an EcoGo report.

“The timing is pretty busy for today’s poor stock situation, every mango is critical if you’re paying the soybean dollar at $ 200. From now on, the payout and income profile is complex for the stock of soybeans. reserves, “said Aurum’s Pablo Repetto. Other analysts believe that there would be no major problems due to the accumulated SDRs. “Only in June 2023 you have to scratch the plate,” said Fernando Marull of FYMA.

“The tour was very positive, Yanet Yellen appeared, with the IDB she managed to unlock some loans, not much but she got some money, which helps in the international part and is strengthened internally, this does not mean that the challenges are much large, the reserves continue to be very low even if they manage to reach 4,000 million dollars, it is a good start, we will see how it goes on, “said former finance secretary Miguel Kiguel.