Argentine Government Takes Retirement Money to Finance Itself

The Government of Mauricio Macri decided to take 15,000 million pesos from the Sustainability Guarantee Fund (FGS) to finance itself, according to resolution 265-E / 2017 published this Tuesday in the Official Gazette of Argentina.

The FGS contains financial assets such as public securities, shares of public limited companies, fixed terms, negotiable obligations, mutual funds, financial trusts and mortgage certificates, used to finance the reserve system to pay for pensions.

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In spite of not detailing the type of expense that will be paid with the money, the document specifies that the Treasury Bill (Letes) will have an issue date of December 22, 2017 and will expire on March 22, 2018; 90 days term.

In 2016, the current administration took more than 2 billion dollars from the FGS to cover current spending, local media reported.

For its part, the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) reported that Argentina's external debt amounted to 216,351 million dollars after the end of the third quarter of the year, 20 percent more than last year, when it reached 179,775 million.