Lula and IMF director Kristalina Giorgieva met during the G7 summit in Japan.| Photo: Ricardo Stuckert/Presidency of the Republic

President Lula put on the table the complicated economic situation that Argentina is experiencing, a country for which he asked for special treatment during a meeting he held this Saturday with the director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, informed sources in the Presidency. Argentina, which must comply with the requirements of an agreement signed last year with the IMF to refinance a millionaire loan granted in 2018, is going through a complicated economic situation marked by the shortage of international currency, the devaluation of the peso and a galloping inflation that is situated in the 108% in the accumulated of 12 months.

The Argentine situation was also addressed by Lula in his first intervention at the G7 summit, in which he asked the financial entity for special treatment for the neighboring country. “The foreign debt of many countries, which Brazil lived through in the past and which Argentina now suffers from, is the cause of alarming and growing inequality and requires treatment by the International Monetary Fund that considers the social consequences of adjustment policies. [fiscal]”, he said.

According to a brief statement from the Presidency, the situation in Argentina was discussed later, in Lula’s private meeting with the IMF director, as a necessary matter “for the regional balance of the South American countries”, without giving further details. Another topic addressed at the meeting was the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the poorest countries. Both Lula and Georgieva agreed with the need for the financial systems of the affected nations to receive resources to help in their recovery process.