Argentina reaches debt repayment deal with Paris Club [View all]

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Argentine Economy Minister Martín Guzmán announced Tuesday that Argentina had reached an agreement with the Paris Club of creditor countries to avoid defaulting on a loan repayment in July.

“We have reached an understanding with the Paris Club to avoid defaulting on July 31, when a grace period was to expire for the repayment of a final tranche of debt of about $2.4 billion,” Guzmán told reporters in the capital.

Argentina will instead make a $430 million payment in the short term - followed by the rest later.

The amount owed was the last repayment on debt renegotiated with the Paris Club in 2014 (then $9.7 billion).

Guzmán pointed out that the new payment dates were not yet fully defined - though the first payment would likely take place on July 31, with the second in March 2022.

Argentina will continue negotiations for rescheduling some $45 billion it owes the IMF - part of a record bailout granted to former President Mauricio Macri in 2018, reportedly at Trump's behest.

Guzmán's successful refinance of $66 billion in foreign debt last August (around a third of the total) trimmed the country's foreign debt service by 35% from a record $17.4 billion in 2019.

At: https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/economy/guzman-confirms-argentina-has-reached-deal-with-paris-club.phtml

Argentine Economy Minister Martín Guzmán holds a Zoom meeting this morning with the President of the Paris Club, Emmanuel Moulin.

The agreement reached today with the Paris Club of creditor nations averts a default on $2.4 million in Argentina's remaining debt with the club - as well as easing uncertainty in the debt-strapped nation.

Argentina still faces IMF payments of over $18 billion annually in 2022 and 2023, besides other foreign debt service of over $10 billion a year - mostly dating from former President Mauricio Macri's 2015-19 tenure, when massive foreign debts were taken on largely to finance the dollarization and offshoring of private assets.