Argentina meets IMF debt payment with Qatar loan

The Argentinian government confirmed today it has repaid a $775 million debt installment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), utilizing Special Drawing Rights (SDR) loaned by Qatar.

This followed the approval of a Facility Agreement model between the two countries.

The announcement came via Decree 404/2023, which outlines Qatar’s loan of 580 million SDRs, hence Argentina did not resort to using international reserves for this payment.

Owing to the extended timeline for approving the ‘Staff Level Agreement’ (SLA) by the IMF, Argentinian authorities engaged Qatar to fulfill the obligations to the IMF.

Thus, Argentina has made another payment to the IMF without tapping its reserves.

This follows a similar action on Monday, when it repaid US$2.7 billion using funds from the Latin American Development Bank (CAF) and Chinese yuan from a swap agreement with China.

The Qatar loan is to be repaid at IMF’s variable SDR interest rate, currently at 4.033% annually, with no extra surcharge or commission.

Following the potential approval of the recent agreement between Argentinian authorities and IMF’s technical staff, the IMF is expected to disburse approximately US$7.5 billion to the country.

This comes as part of an ongoing financial program since March 2022 to resolve Argentina’s US$44.5 billion debt, which the country contracted in mid-2018 amid a challenging financial landscape.