Argentina will disburse US$1.4 billion of a maturity with the IMF in the next few days while it negotiates a loan of about US$2.5 billion with a group of banks. The objective is to maintain a minimum level of reserves while the market presses on the dollar, which can accelerate inflation.
The resumption of the technical talks with the Monetary Fund is expected for the end of February or the beginning of March. The government will make the last interest payment in the coming days before the resumption of technical talks with the agency’s staff, in which it will seek to unlock the first disbursement of the year, for US$5.4 billion.
It will be a demanding year in the agreement with the IMF: in addition to the targets for deficit, reserves and monetary issue, the Executive Power will have to return to Washington more dollars than will enter throughout the year, which will increase the pressure on the reserves .
The preliminary announcement of US$1,000 million to repurchase debt bonds represents about 15% of the total outstanding of the 2029 and 2030 Globals. 2023 will be a particular year for the agreement with the Monetary Fund in terms of flow income and currency outflows.
Just as 2022 implied higher disbursements than payments throughout the year, which allowed net financing, this 2023 that differential will be negative by about US$3.4 billion.
The rise in the blue dollar is worrying
To calm exchange pressures, with the blue dollar at its highest nominal value, the Government resumed talks to advance a set of loans for up to US$2.5 billion with foreign entities.
The net reserves of the Central Bank are around US$6,000 million and the gross reserves total US$42,655 million. The authorities maintain that US$1,000 million is coming out of the latter to buy the bonds.
Now, four Repurchase Agreement (Repo) offers are being studied, credits in which the debtor must generally deliver bonds in dollars as collateral. And the term would be one year renewable.
The interested parties are an Asian institution, a New York entity, a large investment fund and a European bank. The rate, the type of guarantee (collateral) and the amount, which in total amount to US$2.500 million, are discussed.
Fuente: Scope
