Argentine Economy Minister travels to Washington DC to seek investment

The Argentine Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, travels on Monday, September 5, to Washington DC to start his tour in the United States, searching for investments and foreign currency.

Massa, who is scheduled to arrive in the US capital on Monday, will be accompanied by his spokesman, Santiago García Vazquez, and his international advisor Gustavo Martínez Pandiani, to start on Tuesday morning his marathon of meetings with officials from the White House, the Treasury, business people and investors of the real economy, and international organizations, sources from his entourage told Télam.

Massa’s economic team is also heading to the United States to begin face-to-face meetings with the staff of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to formally start the second review of the agreement before the meeting between Massa and the Managing Director of the organization, Kristalina Georgieva, which will take place on September 12 at the organization.

The Argentine Minister of Economy is also expected to meet with the rest of the IMF management, including the First Deputy Managing Director, Gita Gopinath, and the Director of the Western Hemisphere Department, Ilan Goldfajn, according to IMF sources.

The Deputy Minister of Economy and Secretary of Economic Policy, Gabriel Rubinstein; the Chief of Advisors of the Ministry, Leonardo Madcur; the Secretary of Finance, Raúl Rigo; the Secretary of Finance, Eduardo Setti; the Director of the Central Bank, Lisandro Cleri; and the head of Indec, who collaborates in the relationship with the organizations, Marco Lavagna; are Massa’s men who will be received on Monday by the IMF team headed by the head of the mission for Argentina, Luis Cubeddu, to work on the second review of the program reached with the multilateral organization.

It will be an intensive day of work between both teams even though, paradoxically, that day is celebrated as the Labor Day holiday in the United States.

In this regard, Massa began to implement a series of policies to face a “fiscal order” in the State; he anticipated that there would be no more financing from the Central Bank to the Treasury by the end of the year, and he faced a successful debt swap with reducing the public financing needs of the third quarter, and he sought to close sectorial agreements to accelerate the entry of foreign currency into the country.

“The teams, which have been working virtually closely together, will continue discussions on the macroeconomic outlook and policies to strengthen stability and ensure compliance with the program’s objectives,” the IMF said.

Meanwhile, Massa’s entourage told Télam that a delegation to his meetings would not accompany the Minister of Economy but that the different officials who are in the United States “would join specific meetings, where their participation is necessary, depending on the technical issue at hand”, according to what they said.

MASSA’S AGENDA

As regards Massa’s schedule, in addition to the meeting with Georgieva, a meeting with the Vice President of Operations of the World Bank, Axel van Trotsenburg; and with the IDB head, Mauricio Claver-Carone, to whom he will request the acceleration of disbursements for the country, is foreseen.

Meanwhile, there will be meetings with the highest authorities of the US Treasury, with whom he will progress in the tax information exchange agreement between the AFIP and the IRS to detect irregularities and possible tax evasion.

He is also expected to meet with White House officials and executives of the leading companies that are members of the American Chamber of Commerce.

In Washington, sectorial meetings with automakers and Knowledge Economy companies are planned, including interviews with Volkswagen and Stellantis (an international automobile group resulting from the merger of the Italian-American Fiat Chrysler and the French Groupe PSA), General Motors, and Amazon, among others.

On Friday, September 9, Massa will travel to Houston (Texas) to hold a working day with oil companies and business chambers of the energy sector.

Meetings are scheduled with Chevron, Exxon, and Total, among others, and with energy companies in the Lithium field.

One of them is Livent, a company that plans to start in the medium term substantial investments in the country to export and supply the automotive company General Motors in the United States.

Finally, Massa will launch, together with the Minister of Tourism, Matías Lammens, a program to attract more tourists to Argentina and will seek a more significant commitment from Joe Biden’s government to go after possible Argentine tax evaders who bring their capital to the United States in undeclared accounts in the country (automatic information exchange agreements).

The second review of the program will then require Board approval, which will trigger the disbursement of US$4.1 billion needed to strengthen the reserves and meet the payments with the international organization.

For this purpose, Argentine officials and the Fund’s staff will work on the figures for the second quarter of the year, the quantitative targets to be met (reserves, Central Bank assistance to the Treasury, and fiscal deficit), as well as monitor the indicative targets and evaluate and analyze the eventual corrections that the Argentine government will have to implement in the future through its economic policies to reach the annual targets.

With information from Télam