The International Monetary Fund (IMF) endorsed Javier Milei’s economic course but also pushed back on the fiscal surplus the government has been celebrating, calling for a tax reform and a faster pace of reserve accumulation ahead of next year’s presidential elections.

The IMF’s Executive Board wrapped up the second review of Argentina’s 48-month Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement late last week. The approval cleared an immediate disbursement of roughly US$1 billion.

In its Staff Report and Selected Issues documents, released on Friday, the fund highlighted the “reform momentum” built up by the passage of key legislation on fiscal, labor and trade matters.

The IMF said program implementation “remained strong” and that the policies applied were “prudent.” Even so, it acknowledged that the government had missed its net international reserves target for last December by “a significant margin.”

The government missed the target by US$10 billion, largely because of “the increase in dollarization ahead of the........

© Buenos Aires Herald