Argentina asks $50 bn help to IMF

IMF chief Christine Lagarde said the Washington-based lender would look at speeding up payments of the bank’s $50 billion loan after talks with Macri earlier Wednesday.

The IMF approved the $50 billion, three-year standby loan in June. Lagarde said the IMF would work to strengthen its arrangement with Argentina and “re-examine the phasing of the financial program”.

The “more adverse international market conditions” battering Argentina’s economy “had not been fully anticipated,” she admitted in a statement.

Macri called for the early release of the funds in a phone call with Lagarde on Wednesday.

It came amid heightened volatility in Argentina’s financial and currency markets, which have been battered by uncertainty over inflation, an economic downturn and budget deficits.

The Argentine peso has lost more than 40 percent of its value against the dollar this year. Inflation is projected to surpass 30 percent by the end of 2018.

Macri said in a televised address that Argentina had agreed with the IMF “to advance all necessary funds to guarantee compliance with next year’s financial programme”.

Macri said that in the past week there had been “expressions of a lack of trust in the markets” about Argentina. He said the decision sought to dispel any uncertainty, but he did not specify the amount or when the funds would be released.

The IMF said in a statement that it would “revise the government’s economic plan with a focus on better insulating Argentina from the recent shifts in global financial markets, including through stronger monetary and fiscal policies and a deepening of efforts to support the most vulnerable in society”.

Most Argentinians have bad memories of the IMF and blame the international lending institution for encouraging policies that led to the country’s worst economic crisis in 2001. It ago resulted in one of every five Argentinian being unemployed and millions sliding into poverty.

The IMF has admitted it made a string of mistakes that contributed to the problems. A 2004 report by the IMF’s internal audit unit concluded it failed to provide enough oversight, and overestimated growth and the success of economic reforms, while it continued to lend Argentina money when its debt had become unsustainable.