Congress on Thursday passed almost unanimously a new law making parliamentary approval mandatory before signing any debt agreements, including with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with whom the government is currently renegotiating the payment of major loan. The bill, already approved by the Senate last November, was only opposed by the two FIT leftist deputies … Read more

Latin America’s economic recovery faces risks from failure to stop the spread of the coronavirus and the need for new lockdown measures, according to the International Monetary Fund. The region’s full recuperation is a long way off, IMF officials including Western Hemisphere Director Alejandro Werner wrote in a blog post published Monday. Output won’t return … Read more

Argentina’s inflation rate shows no sign of decreasing. The INDEC national statistics bureau reported Thursday that prices rose by four percent in January, equal to the rate registered in December. Telecommunications and food prices were among the products accelerating the quickest, the data watchdog said. The news will do little to dampen fears that Argentines … Read more

President Alberto Fernández is threatening farmers with a tax hike or quota for exports as he seeks relief for families grappling with inflation that’s forecast to reach 47 percent this year. If the farm industry continues to sell food at home for the same prices at which it exports, the government will take matters into … Read more

The International Monetary Fund risks having to renegotiate its second multi-billion dollar loan in Latin America in as many years following Ecuador’s presidential election. The candidates who likely advanced to a runoff vote in the Andean country, Andrés Arauz and Yaku Pérez, have both criticised the tax increases and spending cuts required as part of … Read more

Argentina’s goal to reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund on a new programme by May 2021 is an ambitious timeline, according to the the Fund’s Western Hemisphere Director Alejandro Werner. “I don’t see it as unviable, but clearly it’s an ambitious date,” Werner said Monday during a virtual IMF press briefing. “The Argentine authorities … Read more

THE WEEK IN CORONAVIRUS There were 1,915,362 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 47,775 deaths at press time yesterday as against 1,853,830 cases and 46,575 deaths the previous Friday. Last weekend Vice-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner received her Sputnik V jab in Avellaneda, not from any ordinary nurse or doctor but from no less than Buenos … Read more

The gilded Trump name may no longer sell New York real estate. But, 5,000 miles away, investors are raising millions in a bet that the former US president’s brand retains its international cachet. In South America, they’re resurrecting a project left for dead: a Trump tower in Punta del Este, the Uruguay resort city known … Read more

THE WEEK IN CORONAVIRUS There were 1,970,009 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 48,985 deaths at press time yesterday, as against 1,915,362 cases and 47,775 deaths the previous Friday. One death last weekend was not caused by Covid-19 but was a high-profile episode within the quarantine saga – Abigail Jiménez, 12, the terminal cancer patient who … Read more

In what amounts to rare praise for Argentina’s politics and economic policies, global anti-poverty charity Oxfam hailed the Alberto Fernández administration’s one-off capital levy on wealthy citizens this week, calling on other nations to follow suit. In reaction to the pandemic, countries should raise wealth taxes like Argentina, Oxfam told the Davos Economic Forum (held … Read more