On Friday another bond, the Bogato, a paper issued during the last government, expires and pays the equivalent in pesos of $900 million. The government is tendering today three new debt papers to try to soften this payment.
The wage index increased by 2.6% in December 2019 compared to the previous month, and reached 40.9% year-on-year, the National Institute of Statistics (Indec) published today. If the data is crossed with the official price index measured by the same agency, it shows that last year wages lost 12.9 points against inflation, which reached 53.8%.
Argentina’s government said on Sunday it had hired Lazard as financial advisor and Bank of America and HSBC as debt placement agents for the debt restructuring process it hopes to close by the end of March. In a brief statement the Finance Ministry limited itself to disclosing the names of the financial institutions that will be intermediaries for the restructuring of close to $100 billion in public debt.
Government officials throughout Latin America are working on ways to help push automobile exports coming from Argentina. While the country’s automobile production in January (2020) rose 39.7% year-over-year to 20,683 units, exports dropped 54.2% to 8,691 units, according to the country’s vehicle manufacturers association Adef. The domestic market (dealership sales) was also down by more than 14% in the same comparison.
A new program being discussed by Argentina and its biggest lender, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), could set up private bondholders for heavy losses without requiring the spending cuts needed to make the country solvent, investors say. Argentina and the IMF announced last month they will explore the possibility of a new program that would replace a defunct $57 billion loan agreement struck by the previous government in 2018.
