Argentina says it may default on $44 billion debt if IMF does not renegotiate terms

Feb 11, 2020 | 5 comments

By Hugh Bronstein

Argentina heads into do-or-die talks this week with its biggest creditor, the International Monetary Fund, fresh from a failed bond sale on Monday that augured poorly for the government’s plan for revamping about $100 billion in debt.

Argentina President Alberto Fernandez

The country wants to postpone debt payments while honoring its promise to voters to avoid painful budget cuts. That agenda was dealt a blow on Monday when the Economy Ministry sent a one-sentence statement saying, without explanation, that the planned issue of peso-denominated debt had been abandoned.

“The government wanted to issue debt at a lower interest rate than investors were willing to accept. This unsuccessful episode is not a good sign ahead of the IMF talks and the restructuring process,” said Gabriel Zelpo, director of Buenos Aires economic consultancy Seido.

Left-leaning President Alberto Fernandez hopes to convince the Fund to renegotiate $44 billion in suspended loans under a program that would avoid the kind of fiscal austerity and structural reforms the IMF typically imposes to restore nations’ finances.

The government also wants IMF approval of its plan to restructure tens of billions of dollars owed to bondholders.

It hopes to achieve all this before a March 31 deadline it has imposed on itself so it may refocus on restoring growth. The future of Latin America’s No.3 economy hinges on the Wednesday-through-Friday discussions to be held in Buenos Aires between IMF and Argentine officials.

The week may end without a hard statement from either side about new economic or debt management policies, however.

“The government needs to make the perfect move, with a bond restructuring that the IMF can approve and that balances the need for some fiscal austerity with the political restrictions imposed by the government’s leftist coalition,” Zelpo said.

“If it is successful the economy will recover. If not, the recession will deepen,” he said.

Analysts expect on average an economic contraction of 1.5% this year.

Fernandez’s late 2019 election was a rebuke to previous leader Mauricio Macri, who killed his own hopes of re-election by imposing unpopular subsidy cuts that fueled inflation while his over-borrowing in the bond market helped weaken the local peso currency by 83% during his four-year term.

The IMF and Argentina have a complicated past. Many blame the fund’s policies for causing a 2001 economic meltdown that threw millions of middle-class Argentines into poverty.

A 2018 run on the peso nonetheless forced Macri into a $57 billion IMF loan agreement that included tough fiscal targets.

Only $44 billion of that money was distributed before the agreement was put on hold last year when Argentina admitted it would have to rejig a total of about $100 billion in debt.

Economy Minister Martin Guzman has approached the IMF and bondholders with talk of an investor-friendly bond revamp, while making it clear the government will neither risk worsening the recession by imposing fiscal austerity nor keep making unsustainable bond payments.

The fund and the government both say they expect a productive dialogue this week.

The ministry wants to get the IMF on board with its plan for delaying debt service payments long enough to let the economy emerge from recession and to improve its repayment capacity.
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Credit: Reuters, www.reuters.com

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