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BUENOS AIRES — Silvina Batakis arrives at the Argentine Ministry of Economy in full-scale crisis mode. She has an inflation rate of over 60%, a large budget deficit, fears of default, and savers expect to lose confidence in the peso currency and lose value.
A 53-year-old heretic or unorthodox economist takes on a new style in the role of Minister of Economy after moderate economist Martin Guzman suddenly resigns following a clash with armed groups in the ruling coalition. May bring.
Born in the southern region of Tierra del Fuego, Batakiss was the Minister of Economy and then Governor of Buenos Aires, Argentina's largest and wealthiest state from 2011 to 2015. Under Daniel Siori, he is now a national producer. Minister. In her last job, she was a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Interior.
Finance and economics graduates are one with the militant wings of the dominant Peronist coalition around powerful vice president Christina Fernandez de Kirchner, who has openly clashed with Guzman over stricter financial policies. I am doing it.
The sector is high despite the new $ 44 billion transaction target with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reduce budget deficits, increase reserves and reduce central bank funding. We want more public spending to alleviate poverty levels.
Batakiss is more likely to react to radical wings than Guzman.
Her "no dignified poverty" she wrote in her post pinned to her own Twitter account. "It's just poverty, and we have to fight it. It's fighting the nation that plans and intervenes, and the society that imposes it as a social goal."
The new minister received a degree in economics from La Plata National University in Argentina in 1993 and a master's degree in public finance. She also holds a master's degree in environmental economics from York University in the United Kingdom.
Scioli said on Twitter, "She is a high-quality, professionally trained person." She is a tireless worker with a sense of responsibility and experience.
She needs it. Investors are increasingly concerned that Argentina will not be able to meet its debt promises amid high energy import costs that are absorbing foreign currency reserves and inflation associated with rising global prices.
Strict currency regulations have led the popular alternative foreign exchange market to buy dollars. There, people will be willing to pay twice the official rate to get a green back. This tends to distort trade prices and fan inflation.
Argentina has set goals agreed with the IMF as part of its 30-month program and needs to renegotiate a $ 2 billion debt deal with the Paris Club's Sovereign Lenders Group. Guzman was expected to travel to France for talks this week.
Consultora Seido economist Matias Carugati, on Twitter, appeared that President Alberto Fernandez had given control of the economy to the vice president's wings, but Batakis still presents her policy vision. He said it was necessary.
"Currently, we have a minister, but we don't have an economic plan yet," he said. (Report by Jorge Otaola; edited by Adam Jordan and Raju Gopalakrishnan)