Argentina and China are in talks to extend their currency exhanges
Argentina’s cabinet chief says continuing the programme would help his nation weather recent financial turmoil
Argentina is in talks with China about extending a currency swap programme because of recent financial turmoil, Argentina’s cabinet chief said on Wednesday.
“There are talks … to see if there’s a possibility of extending the swaps in the current situation,” Cabinet Chief Marcos Pena said via webcast from an event he attended in New York.
He said that Argentina’s relationship with China had been “very fruitful”. China’s central bank last year extended a bilateral swap agreement for 70 billion yuan (US$10.37 billion) for another three years.
Argentina’s former president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, first signed a swap agreement with China in 2009 as a means of boosting dwindling reserves that her government relied on to pay for energy imports and to cover debt obligations.
A second agreement was signed in 2014. The previous swaps allowed Argentina to bolster foreign reserves or pay for Chinese imports with yuan.