Argentina - 0 IMF - 0

in the continuing telenovela on the argentine debt swap...



the buenos aires herald in an article entitled "partners after all," reports that argentine economic minister roberto lavagna met with imf managing director rodrigo de rato yesterday...

Argentina and the International Monetary Fund are entering "a stage of normality" following the country’s restructuring of its mammoth 100 billion dollar debt in default, IMF managing-director Rodrigo de Rato (photo) said after a meeting with Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna yesterday. De Rato noted, however, that the government of President Néstor Kirchner still has to look into "a strategy" to cater for the 24 percent of bondholders who did not accept the swap, known in the financial markets as the holdouts.

this is from the text of de rato's press conference on april 14...

When we are saying that the Argentine authorities have to put forward a realistic approach or realistic strategy regarding the unrestructured debt, it just means, of course, a strategy that will take into account, first of all, the amount of debt that has not been restructured and, the other, that whatever the solution is to that debt, it will have to be both in the scenario of the debt sustainability analysis and also in the framework of the lending into arrears policy of the Fund.

ok, that all seems to jive... but...

Argentina insists it will not engage in new talks with debt holdouts.

partners...? did somebody blink and i missed it...? the financial times, after noting the imfc's statement, then quotes lavagna and adds an interesting comment..

The International Monetary and Financial Committee, the IMF's governing body, issued a statement following its spring meeting at the weekend, calling on Argentina to come up with “a strategy to resolve the remaining arrears outstanding to private creditors”. [...]
Roberto Lavagna, Argentina's economy minister, immediately responded, issuing a statement that said: “Argentina does not accept discriminatory action or demands in regards to debt restructuring.” [...] Some officials present at the IMFC meeting expressed surprise that the committee agreed to make the strong demands in its statement that requires unanimous approval from its members. Its 24 members are drawn from developed and developing countries, but the statement suggests they have all lost patience with Argentina.

well...! partners, eh...? it also sounds like this is going to continue to play out for a while... again, from the ft...

But real force is only likely to be applied when Argentina seeks a new loan agreement from the IMF, which will not happen before the country's congressional elections in October.

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