The government will eliminate its primary fiscal deficit in 2019 in order to balance public finances and protect surplus into the future, Treasury Minister Nicolás Dujovne announced Monday.
Argentina's public finances will see a one-percent surplus in 2020, Dujovne said during a press conference held shortly after President Mauricio Macri's statements Monday morning about the country's ongoing financial crisis.
"The recession is going to be stronger than what we had imagined", Dujovne recognised. He conceded that the Mauricio Macri government has made "mistakes".
"Of course we have made mistakes. The imbalance has left us exposed and our attempts to balance everything left us open to fiscal flow", he said.
Dujovne will travel to Washington later today to negotiate the advance payment of the next installment of a US$50-billion stand-by loan with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
MEASURES
The minister confirmed the restoration of duties on agriculture and industrial exports, in line with previous remarks made by President Macri.
Soy and soy byproduct exports will be subject to higher duties as of tomorrow (Tuesday), Dujovne announced.
"There has been a change in context: We had a drought; international interest rates rose; emerging currencies lost value; and this happened to us before we were able to correct our macro-economic situation", he said, pointing also to the ongoing graft scandal which has exposed the extent of public-private corruption in Argentina's construction sector.
"There has been a change in context: We had a drought; international interest rates rose; emerging currencies lost value; and this happened to us before we were able to correct our macro-economic situation", he said.
"The only way to create a stable and sustainable path toward development with low inflation and which allows us to beat poverty is for us to clean up our public finances", he urged.
-TIMES
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