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ECONOMY | 22-04-2019 17:41

IMF official: Rise in poverty may prompt more 'social spending'

Officials says increase in the poverty rate could force the government to rethink its spending plans and "protect the poor."

An official with the International Monetary Fund has declared that the increase in the poverty rate in Argentina could force the government to rethink its spending plans and "protect the poor."

Nigel Chalk, the IMF's deputy director for the Western Hemisphere, told the Financial Times newspaper yesterday that further economic turmoil in the country could prompt "a recalibration of social spending to provide more space for the government to act to protect the poor.” 

“We’re very conscious, and so are the [Argentine] authorities, that an increase in poverty would pose serious challenges to achieving the objectives of the programme,” Chalk told the FT, in an article focused on how an increase in poverty could lead to more spending from the government and an increase in the deficit.

Argentina's poverty rate in the second half of 2018 rose to 32 percent – a rise of six percentage points from the same period the previous year – with 6.7 percent of citizens living in a state of extreme poverty, according to data from the INDEC national statistics bureau.

- TIMES

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