President Alberto Fernández will spend the long weekend at the Chapadmalal presidential residence. There, a few meters from the sea and accompanied by his family and some close collaborators, after a trip to Chile that lasted less than a day, he will resume his activities that will mix some rest with the analysis and repercussions of the new economic measures. that Minister Sergio Massa communicated yesterday, with the implementation of a differential dollar for the agricultural sector and for other sectors linked to the regional economies.
With the new “agro dollar” they believe that the currency settlement of the cereal complex should be accelerated significantly in the next 45 days. The estimation of the economic team is that no less than USD 5,000 million should enter, in addition to another USD 2,000 million from regional economies.
The President will remain in permanent contact with the members of his Cabinet, and is preparing for the visit that the US Undersecretary of State, Wendy Sherman, will make to the country next week -starting Tuesday. She is the official who supports Anthony Blinken and who was appointed by President Joseph Biden as supervisor of the dollar financing bridge that was recently agreed between the two heads of state in Washington.
Sherman, 73, is a trusted Biden diplomat who even participated in the truncated negotiations with the intention of stopping the warlike actions between Ukraine and Russia. One of his missions in Buenos Aires, where he will meet with Massa and Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero, will be to monitor progress so that more financing can reach Argentina from multilateral organizations such as the World Bank and that the relationship between our country and the International Monetary Fund.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric, left, receives Argentine President Alberto Fernandez at the La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago, Chile, Wednesday, April 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Esteban Félix)
The President will also continue to work on the ideas he presented in Santiago de Chile, where he held a virtual meeting with other Latin American presidents to find solutions to the rise in inflation rates in the region.
One of the initiatives he proposed was to use a currency swap like the one Argentina already has with China. Taking this model, and not the reduction of tariffs, Fernández believes that the increase that occurs especially in the food sector can be reduced. In addition to saving dollar reserves, it would help to balance the asymmetries that exist between the economies of the countries involved.
Another contribution could be that of UNASUR, that regional body to which Argentina has just announced its return. This time, according to the Argentine government, the value of the block should point to the economic rather than to act as a political counterweight in Latin America. One of the examples presented was that of companies that operate simultaneously in two or more nations of the continent, such as Techint (which has business in Argentina and Brazil) or Arcor (more diversified in several countries). In these days, Brazil will also communicate that it is once again a member of UNASUR.
As reported from the Casa Rosada in the meeting between the presidents, which lasted more than two hours and in which, in addition to the Argentine president, the Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Brazilian Lula da Silva, the Chilean Gabriel Boric, the Cuban Miguel Díaz Canel and the Bolivian Luis Arce, among others, agreed to form “a Technical Working Group to identify commercial facilities, as well as logistical and financial measures, that allow promoting regional trade in basic basket products and intermediate goods, such as mechanisms to combat food insecurity and stimulate regional food production”.
This debate, which was promoted by López Obrador, could continue in person in the first week of adulthood in a city in Mexico.
Meanwhile, this will also be a key week in which the President will analyze how the assembly of the process continues within the Frente de Todos to go to a STEP in which the formula of the ruling party that will compete in the elections of this 2023 will be defined.
On Friday the 14th, in addition, the inflation index for March will be released through INDEC and the forecast that it will again exceed 7% causes alerts in the Government since the goal of 60% per year seems more and more a utopia.