IMF technical staff team lands in Buenos Aires

A technical staff team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) landed in Buenos Aires on Thursday, with the goal of auditing Argentina’s economic program.  Javier Milei’s administration struck a US$20 billion loan with the Fund last April, which piles up with a previous US$45 billion debt the country took on with the lender in 2018 during Mauricio Macri’s government. Now, in order to get an upcoming US$1.1 billion disbursement, Argentina must pass the second review of the new agreement. Earlier this week, the government paid more than US$800 million in interest to the agency. The “technical mission” is headed by the IMF’s mission chiefs for Argentina, Luis Cubeddu and Bikas Joshi, sources in the lender told the Herald. The team is also in Argentina for its so-called “Article IV Consultations,” annual contacts the IMF holds with authorities of each member government, and often with civil society actors such as unions and business leaders, to assess a country’s economic health. One of the key aspects of the evaluation, which corresponds to the targets agreed upon for the end of 2025, is Argentina’s international reserve accumulation. Private consultants estimate that net international reserves measured using the methodology included in the program with the Fund were around US$13 billion below the committed level. The national administration only began consistently purchasing foreign currency in January, after months in which government authorities said doing so would fuel inflation. However, given the Argentine government’s alignment with the United States — the Fund’s main stakeholder —, analysts agree that the lender will surely grant Argentina a waiver. In the first review of the current program, released in August 2025, the government had also committed to update the way its statistical agency, INDEC, measures inflation. The administration had said that, before the end of the year, it would base the calculation on the 2017-18 household expenditure survey, instead of the 2004 one it is using. The stated goal was “to better reflect structural changes in cost patterns” and to “improve data quality.”However, earlier this week, Economy Minister Luis Caputo said the government would not update the methodology until “the disinflation process is fully consolidated.” The head of the INDEC, Marco Lavagna, resigned over the disagreement.