Javier Milei, the outsider who won Argentina’s primary election this week, is starting talks with the International Monetary Fund over the country’s US$44-billion programne, a key piece of policy that will need to be addressed by the next administration.
Milei said his sister and campaign manager Karina received a call from IMF officials to set up a meeting following an upset victory on August 13, without giving details on the still-to-be scheduled encounter.
“We’re seeing how to approach the meeting,” he said Tuesday in an interview with local radio station Radio La Red. “We don’t have a problem taking on the programme with the IMF because we have a hypothesis about the adjustment that is a lot tougher.”
Meeting different political leader is part of the IMF’s regular approach for officials working on Argentina’s programme, the fund’s largest. Before the primary vote, IMF representatives had already anticipated intensifying talks with opposition members to gauge how they’d want to address the US$44-billion programme, Bloomberg News reported last month.
The IMF press office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Milei also said on Tuesday he would approach the programme’s fiscal targets by slashing public spending from the political sector.
“The big difference in the programme we are proposing is we are going to go against politics, the places where politicians rob,” he added.
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by Manuela Tobias, Bloomberg
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