Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri speaks at the Argentine Industrial Union annual conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, September 4, 2018. Argentine Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
September 5, 2018
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentina’s peso opened 0.89 percent weaker at 39.4 per U.S. dollar on Wednesday as government officials hunkered down with the International Monetary Fund in Washington to secure early cash disbursements under an emergency financing deal.
Argentine officials held a second day of talks with the Fund aimed at strengthening the $50 billion standby agreement. But there was little optimism in Argentina that the government has the political will to implement unpopular spending cuts expected to be part of a revamped IMF deal.
“Skepticism is dominant in the local market,” said Esteban Goyheneix, head of Buenos Aires market brokerage Neix. Tuesday’s slide brought the peso’s losses so far this year to more than 53 percent against the greenback.
(Reporting by Hugh Bronstein and Jorge Otaola; Editing by Daniel Flynn)
