De Mendiguren said that the government is negotiating to advance funds and postpone maturities with the IMF

The Secretary of Industry and Productive Development, José Ignacio De Mendiguren, said this Wednesday that he is “very optimistic” regarding an agreement between Argentina and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and assured that the main objective is advance funds and postpone maturities.

“I was working with the Fund’s technical team and we are optimistic about reaching a convenient agreement for Argentina. Both the Fund and the American government have recognized the impact that this historic drought has had on Argentina which has subtracted nothing more and nothing less than a quarter of all our exports last year. It is not a minor issue,” said the official in statements to FM La Patriada.

Consulted regarding the proposals made by the Government in the negotiations with the organization, De Mendiguren stated: “Advance funds that were going to be assigned between now and the end of the year, postpone or renegotiate the maturities that were now taking place in the short term, that is, it could adapt the commitments with the Fund to Argentina’s possibilities”.

“We know that when this debt was contracted, which we have to face today, it was done fairly lightly because there was nothing that could seriously indicate that Argentina could be paying in the year 2021. $20 billion and in the year 2022 many others. So this was known to be the case,” he added.

Sergio Massa announces a new agreement with the IMF

Why is the revision of the agreement with the IMF important?

Likewise, it seemed that the agreement is necessary “so that Argentina can continue fighting unemployment, continue increasing dollars through its exports and improving the purchasing power of wages, That for us is a priority.”

“It is true that money is not enough for those who workWe are clear about it and it worries us, but we have the highest unemployment rate in the last nine years,” said De Mendiguren, and remarked: “The most important pending issue remains for us to be able to recover the power of wages.”

For the recomposition “we must study all the paths; I think we are going to call parities, it can be shorter parities, sector by sector, it is not the same in all sectors, but we are going to take care of this because it is a priority” .

The official assured that “Argentina is in a complicated process in the short term but very optimistic in the medium and long term; investment has grown again, in the latest data we reached 18.5% of the product, which is the highest in the last nine years, that is the Argentina that must be shown”.

“The IMF looks very favorably on Sergio Massa as a candidate for president” according to the Finance Secretary

Massa’s candidacy

Regarding the presidential candidacy of Sergio Massa, from Mendiguren He highlighted “the unit” and not having entered “in an internal where we put energy where it did not correspond, with the enormous possibilities that Argentina has in the short term to abandon forever the lack of dollars that characterized the crisis of our economy”.

“I am convinced -he added- that for this moment that Argentina is going through, a figure like his, who can achieve consensus and has shown it in Congress, I think it will generate an expectation that we win the elections this year “, conclusion.

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