Argentina’s Batakis tries to cool off markets with austerity announcements

Silvina Batakis, Argentina’s recently sworn-in Economy Minister, made her first economic announcements today, one week after taking office to replace Martín Guzmán — whose departure left a vacuum of uncertainty in President Alberto Fernández’s administration.

Ms. Batakis is trying to put a stop to the latest selloff in Argentinian assets through some classic austerity moves, promising a series of new measures to cap state spending and launching a nationwide move to update property values in order to raise taxes on owners.

“The agreement with the [International Monetary Fund] was signed by the Argentinian state and we will need to comply with it,” Ms. Batakis said, adding that the country “will not spend more than what it has.”

Pressure on the Argentinian Peso eased somewhat after the announcements, with the Argentinian currency strengthening by around 1 percent in the parallel free markets midway through the session, contrary to the general trend in the region which saw the Brazilian Real and the Chilean Peso lose value during the day, in line with the continued global rise of the U.S. Dollar.

Ms. Batakis also promised positive real interest rates for the Treasury’s snowballing peso-denominated debts, but said long-term solutions on that thorny issue still needed to be evaluated. 

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