Argentine President Alberto Fernández took advantage of his intervention in the virtual edition of the Davos Forum on Thursday (28) to convey a positive image of his government, while most of the information he provided was incomplete, especially in the field economic.
He said, for example, that the country’s recovery was swift and 4,500 new jobs had been created in the industry – but failed to mention that more than 300,000 workers have lost their jobs since the start of the pandemic. .
Fernández also cited as achievements of his management the fact that the country has provided economic aid, through lines of credit, to small and medium-sized enterprises, in addition to distributing the IFE (Emergency Family Ticket) to the most vulnerable populations. vulnerable, with the aim of: mitigating the impact of quarantine measures on the family economy of informal and low-income workers.
However, he did not explain that for this the country had to issue currencies in a record amount over the past 20 years, more than 2.3 billion pesos.
He also said the government has negotiated vaccines with several labs, even though it has actually started vaccinating Argentines at a slow pace, only with Sputnik V, from Russia.
Regarding the pandemic, Fernández said that “the virus has revealed and reinforced the immense inequalities that we have in the world”. And he demanded that the current “more speculative than productive” capitalist model be challenged, and which has created “unethical blockages that I see reflected in this vaccine war.”
Asked about the renegotiation of the debt with the IMF (International Monetary Fund), Fernández said he was on the right track, even if the agreement is not yet finalized. The Argentine president is trying to restructure the payment of a debt of 44 billion US dollars (238 billion reais) contracted by his predecessor, center-right Mauricio Macri.
Fernández criticized Macri and also “those responsible for lending money to Argentina”, including the IMF itself. But he explained that under the current leadership of Kristalina Georgieva, the renegotiation is going well.
“When the IMF lent this amount to Argentina, it was not Kristalina who was in charge. Now we are in a good dialogue,” he said. “I understand they want to load, but we need time.”