Javier Milei presented seven government proposals to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that would apply in case of arriving at the Casa Rosada. The dollarization, who preached so much and which led him to gain public notoriety, left it for a second stage of the conversation. According to the far-right presidential candidate, the organization has no problems with its economic plan because its policy is even more orthodox in the fiscal aspect. For the Fund, not quite so: former director in the Western Hemisphere Claudio Loser He assured that replacing all the pesos in the economy with dollars is not exactly what the IMF recommends.
“In my professional experience, dollarization is something that reluctantly accepts for countries the size of Argentina“, Loser responded to the query of Letter P. Instead, he considers that such a process is “reasonable for smaller countries”, but that he prefers “a central bank with a fixed exchange rate”. “Although there is everything,” admitted the Argentine economist who began working at the IMF in 1972, where he became director of the Western Hemisphere Department between 1994 and 2002.
The La Libertad Avanza candidate prepared a list of proposals and explained this Friday to the credit agency what the economic plan that he intends to apply if he becomes president on December 10 consists of. In that proposition, dollarization conspicuous by its absencethe star flag of the far-right that scares the establishment and that the international organization does not look favorably on.
The meeting lasted just over an hour and was held virtually. The far-right economist was accompanied by a trio of advisers made up of Carlos Rodriguez, Darius Epstein and Roque Fernandezthree former officials of the government of Carlos Menem.
The idea of La Libertad Avanza and the ideologue of dollarization that made Milei fall in love, emilio ocampois to apply in the country a model that is very similar to the one adopted by Ecuador in January of the year 2000. Despite the fact that initially the libertarian received proposals to produce the exchange of currencies immediately, the proposal of the economist who joined the candidate’s team a few days ago is exchange the monetary base for US currency in two stages: the first, to inject US$30,000 million in exchange for the money held by the public; the second, to replace the money invested in the Leliqs.
Another of the initiatives presented by Milei and the team Menemist with whom he spoke this Friday at the meeting with the director of the Western Hemisphere, Rodrigo Valdez, was the removal of the Central Bank. On that point, Loser clarified: “The IMF always recommends a Central Bank in charge of the entire financial and banking management process. This can be done with a fixed or flexible exchange rate and even dollarizing, but it must be understood that a dollarized Argentina would not be protected by the Federal Reserve.”
“Management and quality controls have to exist to have a system that works, with opportunities for bailouts, which the Fed clearly gives to the banks of the United States and those of Puerto Rico,” Loser explained, but he left his opinion about the body’s position regarding the minarchist’s decision to want to set the Central Bank on fire, as he preached for months. “It is not mandatory to have the BCRA, but I think that the Fund would not support you in a program“, he sentenced.
