(Reuters) -Current benign international financial market conditions are an opportunity for Argentina to accelerate its accumulation of international reserves, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday.
“The recent improvement in market conditions does present a window of opportunity for the authorities to strengthen macroeconomic policies, to entrench stability and to accelerate reserve accumulation,” said IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack in a scheduled press briefing.
She added it was also a time for planned structural reforms, singling out the areas of tax and labor.
The Fund said U.S. support for Argentina has helped stabilize markets and complements the objectives of the Fund’s $20 billion program with the South American country.
Kozack said the Fund has stressed to Argentina the need to accelerate reserves accumulation and maintain a consistent monetary and foreign exchange framework.
“The choice of the FX regime is one for the country authorities,” Kozack said. “Our view at the IMF is that the chosen regime needs to be consistent with strengthening international reserves and external stability.”
U.S. SUPPORT SUSPECTED
Argentina’s Special Drawing Rights holding at the IMF increased last month by the same amount as the United States’ holding diminished, Fund data showed, suggesting the Trump administration came through in its support for Javier Milei’s government as a payment to the Fund was due.
The United States’ holdings of SDR, the IMF’s reserve asset, diminished by 640.8 million by the October 31 cutoff, the same amount that Argentina’s holdings increased in the same period, according to the Fund’s website.
Argentina was due to make a payment to the Fund for just over 620 million SDRs on November 1, IMF data show.
Asked whether the numbers indicated direct U.S. support, Kozack said:
“The specific size and modalities of the support are bilateral matters between the US authorities and the Argentine authorities.”
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos in New York; editing by Diane Craft, Rod Nickel)
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