The Minister of Foreign Affairs and former Secretary of Finance, Pablo Quirno, predicted that the Central Bank will be able to make the necessary reserve accumulation to "face the debt payments," after uncertainty was reduced following the ruling coalition's electoral victory.
Speaking at a meeting of the Budget and Finance committee, Quirno stated that Argentina "had 23 programs with the IMF and did not comply with absolutely any of them," and that the last agreement with that international organization was "to capitalize the Central Bank."
He also rejected the claim that U.S. assistance through the Swap system generates "conditionalities for Argentina," stating that the only requirement is to maintain the economic plan.
Quirno, who was accompanied by the Secretary of the Treasury Carlos Guberman, accused Kirchnerism of increasing the debt and the fiscal deficit.
He detailed that "the only explicit condition they have made us is that if Argentina continues on this path of ordering its public accounts and maintains it over time, if it finds any facility, it can count on the United States to support it."
The minister also stated that in these four months there has been volatility but as of Sunday "that uncertainty" will begin to decrease since in recent months there have been dollar purchases "out of fear or terror that they will come back," in an allusion to Kirchnerism.
Quirno estimated that from now on "companies will accumulate dollars and the Central Bank will make the reserve accumulation planned for the payments that have to be made of the debt."
He also mentioned that at the beginning, the level of debt was approximately 485 billion dollars, and that "without a fiscal deficit, an increase in debt is not possible."
Regarding public works, Quirno pointed out that "an aggressive program is being carried out with the different provinces, which today are in very good fiscal health, so they can use those funds and carry out infrastructure works."
He also added that the Treasury's debt as of November 2023 amounted to 266 billion dollars, to which is added the debt in pesos, which ends up being the gross debt of said body."
In this sense, he pointed out that "the Treasury's debt in the period from August 2023 to the same month of this year was reduced by almost 50 billion dollars."
Quirno stressed that "one of the main priorities that the Government has is to recover the credibility of the different agents that act in the economy, where honoring obligations is very important."
He also stated: "This Government is the one that has accumulated the most reserves since it was able to gather 26 or 27 billion dollars from the beginning of the Government, which represents double that of the previous government, but due to not having credibility and not being able to access the market, those dollars end up being returned to pay."
He concluded by saying that "debt is always and everywhere the daughter of the fiscal deficit."
