IMF ups Argentina lending scheme by US$7b to US$57b

New York

THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has increased its three-year lending programme with Argentina by US$7 billion to US$57 billion, on the condition that the central bank halted full-scale interventions to support the ailing peso.

IMF managing director Christine Lagarde, speaking at a news conference in New York alongside Argentina's Economy Minister Nicolas Dujovne, said the IMF was "significantly frontloading" disbursements under the scheme.

It will boost the financing available through the end of next year by US$19 billion, she said on Wednesday (Thursday morning, Singapore time).

Argentina has been at the centre of emerging market turmoil this year after a drought plunged Latin America's third-largest economy into recession.

Investor fears that Argentina would not be able to service its foreign debt in 2019 have made the peso one of the world's worst performing currencies this year. It has lost more than 50 per cent of its value in 2018.

Ms Lagarde said that Argentina's central bank had agreed as part of the deal to allow the peso currency to float freely and would only intervene in the foreign exchange market in extreme circumstances.

The central bank has spent nearly US$16 billion in reserves this year in a failed attempt to prop up the peso, using a large share of the dollars disbursed by the IMF so far.

"In the event of extreme overshooting of the exchange rate, the central bank may conduct a limited intervention to prevent disorderly market conditions," Ms Lagarde told reporters.

Subject to IMF board approval, financing under the new deal would no longer be discretionary, but would be readily available to the government for budget support, she said.

Speaking at a later news conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina's new central bank governor, Guido Sandleris, said the bank would establish a trading band for the peso and only intervene in the market if it fell outside that range.

Mr Sandleris, appointed on Tuesday after his predecessor unexpectedly resigned, said the range will initially be set at 34 to 44 pesos to the US dollar. It will depreciate daily at a rate equivalent to 3 per cent per month, he said.

Any intervention in the market outside that range would be capped at US$150 million a day, Mr Sandleris said, far less than the bank spent on many days in recent months. The peso closed at 38.5 to the dollar on Wednesday.

In a far-reaching overhaul of monetary policy, Mr Sandleris also said the central bank would abandon its inflation target of 27 per cent for this year and instead set an objective of limiting money supply.

The bank will target zero growth in the monetary base from now until June 2019, he said.

The central bank has already hiked benchmark interest rates to 60 per cent in an effort to curb inflation, which is now predicted to top 40 per cent this year.

However, with credit accounting for a small share of economic activity in Argentina after decades of financial crises, interest rates have a limited impact on price rises.

"At this time, Argentina needs a simple anchor. Our anchor will be a very strict control of the amount of money in the economy," Mr Sandleris said, adding that it would require months for the new policies to have an impact on prices.

But the monetary base has been growing at a brisk 2 per cent a month and the policy could have a negative economic impact, said Santiago Lopez Alfaro, an economist and associate at Delphos Investments.

"That is very restrictive in an economy that is in recession and with high rates, with economic activity hit hard," he said. REUTERS