The International Monetary Fund urged Javier Milei’s government to build up its foreign reserves as it acknowledged Argentina meeting its end-year accumulation target will be “challenging.”
“At this stage, meeting the end year reserve target will be challenging,” IMF Spokesperson Julie Kozack said at a press briefing Thursday in Washington. “Nonetheless, it remains essential for the authorities to make a concerted effort in the period ahead to rebuild international reserves.”
The IMF’s warning adds fuel to a debate between Milei’s team and some investors over whether the government needs to overhaul its currency policy, which has been an Achilles’ heel in Argentina’s past programmes with the Fund.
“We continue to advocate that the authorities should use the window of opportunity to implement a consistent and robust monetary and FX framework to help support the accumulation of reserves,” Kozack added.
She declined to speculate on whether Argentina would need to request a waiver, or pardon, for failing to meet the key metric.
In its last review, the IMF had already relaxed its dollar reserves target. Argentina was asked to raise net hard-currency reserves to negative US$2.6 billion by the end of this year to unlock the next tranche of IMF funds, about US$5 billion lower than the earlier target.
by Jorgelina do Rosario & Manuela Tobias, Bloomberg
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