Although no one around Sergio Massa He names it, in the financial market they wonder if Argentina could obtain a loan from the Saudi dynasty through pass operations, better known as Repoa line of bank financing widely used in the financial market and through which one part buys the other titles in cash and this is “fit” at the same moment in an inverse operation with a determined term and interest. The spread between the cash purchase price of the security and the forward (future) sale price results in the interest rate of the operation.
The truth is that this idea is not new: in 2021, when Massa was president of the Chamber of Deputies, the Casa Rosada probed the possibility that the largest investment fund in Saudi Arabia, the state-owned PIF, would buy Argentine sovereign bonds to carry out this operation for more than 300 million dollars. The war in Ukraine and the peso crisis froze that possibility.
But the meeting of the Argentine Minister of Economy on his third day of activities in Bengaluru with the Minister of Finance of Saudi Arabia, To Mohammed Aljadareawakened rumors about a repo with the Saudis.
And although it is officially said that Massa only analyzed with Aljadaan the investment projects in energy and food health for 500 million dollars that will be financed by the Saudi Fund for Development (FSD), in the market they believe that pThese investments could unlock the funds to strengthen the reserves of the Argentine Central Bank.
And it is that the Saudis are also interested in lithium, an issue that was highlighted in the meeting with Massa. The potential that Argentina offers in terms of energy, minerals and food drives to maximize trade between the two countries. The Saudis, who are aware of the situation in Argentina regarding the progress of the program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), say they are very interested in lithium from northern Argentina. Something that, more than the good will of the government, could ensure the arrival of fresh dollars, even if they are via Repo.
