The Government will pay the International Monetary Fund about US$2.7 billion between today and tomorrow, while waiting for the agency’s board to approve the second disbursement of the new Extended Facilities program. The payment corresponds to two maturities scheduled in the multimillion-dollar stand-by loan that the Mauricio Macri administration took in 2018.

In this sense, the corresponding outflow of foreign currency destined for the payment comes at a time of suffocation for the reserves of the Central Bank, while officials are analyzing a rationalization of import payments, which reached a historical record in May (driven in part by energy purchases).

The cancellation of liabilities will be made with special drawing rights (SDR) that the Treasury keeps deposited in the BCRA, part of the remainder of the US$9.7 billion that arrived in March, when the agency made the first disbursement of the current program. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, a total of 2,014 million SDRs (about $2,684 million) will be paid.

In order not to affect reservations, the original idea was to cancel these maturities with the resources corresponding to the second disbursement from the IMF, whose turns are shod with the commitments made by the administration of Together for Change. However, those new SDRs have not yet arrived.

All in all, the Executive trusts that this Friday, when the IMF board discusses the first staff review on the fulfillment of the goals for the January-March period and the rescheduling of the goals for the second and third quarters due to the impact of the war in Ukraine, the second disbursement is authorized. The country would then receive 3 billion SDRs, which is equivalent to just over $4 billion. In this way, the weekly payment would be more than compensated.

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