The Minister of Finance, Luis Caputo, together with the Chief of Cabinet of the Ministry of Finance, Pablo Quirno; the Secretary of Finance, Santiago Bausili; and the Undersecretary of International Financial Relations, Martín Soto, are travelling this week to Washington to participate in the 2018 World Bank Spring Meetings.

On Thursday, Mr. Minister is participating as Governor before the World Bank in the panel “Market forces at work: Institutional investors and a sustainable world”, together with the President of the international organization, Jim Yong Kim. The panel will focus on how innovative partnerships between the World Bank Group, investors, and governments can lead to support sustainable and inclusive growth.

The panel will also have the participation of the CEO of the Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), Hiromichi Mizuno; the Director of the UBS Global Topics, Axel Weber; and the CEO of the Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism, Lynn Forester of Rothschild. The event will be broadcasted live at the organization website (http://live.worldbank.org/market-forces-work).

Later, Minister Caputo is participating in the panel “A Conversation with Ministers of Finance from Latin America: The Future of Latin American Fiscal Policy and Growth”, organized by the Center for Global Development. The event will be broadcasted live at the website of the institution and it will be moderated by the directors Liliana Rojas-Suárez and Máximo Torero (https://www.cgdev.org/event/conversation-ministers-finance-latin-america-future-latin-american-fiscal-policy-and-growth).

In addition, the event will have the participation of the following officials: the Minister of Treasury of Colombia, Mauricio Cárdenas; the Minister of Treasury of Paraguay, Lea Giménez Duarte; the Secretary of Treasury and Public Credit of Mexico, José Antonio González Anaya; the Minister of Treasury of Chile, Felipe Larraín Bascuñán; and the Minister of Treasury and Finance of Peru, David Tuesta.

Likewise, Luis Caputo, as President of the Contact Group on Venezuela’s situation, will be holding a meeting with Ministers and high-ranking officials of the Western hemisphere, Europe and Japan to discuss about the economic and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. A first meeting was held on March 19 in Argentina and Caputo issued a statement in which Maduro was requested to accept the offers of international humanitarian aid to take care of the health and well-being of the Venezuelan people.

On Friday, Luis Caputo will be meeting with Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, who represents the United Nations in the agenda of Inclusive Financing for Development, to talk about the importance of financial inclusion and the fight against informality and exclusion to achieve the growth of the whole region.

Finally, Caputo and the team of the Ministry of Finance will be holding important bilateral meetings with representatives of Chile, Mexico and Brazil (to be confirmed) where the focus will be on the insertion of the country into the regional economic scenario. Mr. Minister and his team will be also participating in working meetings together with businessmen and investors, where investment in infrastructure will play a leading role.

The Minister of Finance, Luis Caputo, held a meeting this morning in New York with the CEO of Citi, Michael Corbat. Mr. Minister was accompanied by his Chief of Cabinet, Pablo Quirno and by the Secretary of Finance, Santiago Bausili.

On behalf Citi, Chris Gilfond, Co-Head of Latin America Capital Markets Origination at Citi, and Julio Figueroa, CEO of Citi Argentina, attended the meeting.

After the meeting, Caputo and the Finance team met with different investment funds. In the afternoon, they will be traveling to Washington DC, where Caputo, as Governor before the IDB, will chair the Co-Head of Latin America Capital Markets Origination at Citi and he will meet with the President of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim.

Caputo and the Finance team will hold bilateral meetings with the Minister of Economy of Brazil, Henrique Meirelles; the Minister of Treasury of Chile, Nicolas Eyzaguirre; the Minister of Economy and Finance of Peru, Claudia Cooper; and the Minister of Economy and Finance of Panama, Dulcidio De La Guardia.

Likewise, Mr. Minister will participate in the “Human Capital Summit: Committing to Action to Drive Economic Growth”, organized by the World Bank. Within this framework, representatives from different countries will work on measures to promote human capital in order to drive economic growth.

Finally, the Minister of Finance will meet with the President of the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF), Luis Carranza Ugarte, and they will address the possibility of granting loans to increase infrastructure investment.

The Minister of Finance, Luis Caputo, gave a speech at the Foundation for Latin-American Economic Research (FIEL, for its acronym in Spanish) 2017 Annual Conference “Argentina: Challenges. What is the agenda to face them?” where he said that “fiscal targets will always be met”.

After the keynote address given by FIEL Director Juan Luis Bour, Mr. Minister said that “investment is one of the most important elements of economic recovery” and he anticipated that “this year we will grow 3% and in the third quarter we will be growing above the 4%”. In this sense, Caputo said that “the recovery is clearly being perceived by the people” and that “real salary has allowed consumption to be part of this growth “. “We are going through the best economic time of our Administration”, Caputo highlighted.

Regarding fiscal targets, the Minister of Finance said that “they will always be met” and that “we are going to achieve fiscal balance gradually”. “Meeting fiscal targets gives us credibility to achieve financing, investment and sustainable growth, Caputo added, and he highlighted that “we are generating investment in infrastructure and reducing the level of deficit”.

Regarding investment in infrastructure, Caputo said that we are “leveraging our resources and the resources of multilateral organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank and the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF), and the private sector” to finance works for transportation, energy, social housing, sanitation, etc.

Likewise, Mr. Minister highlighted that the Government “is working in 59 investment projects under the Public-Private Partnership scheme for 26 billion dollars for the next three years and a half”. “We are going to invest 3.5 GDP points in infrastructure, which is approximately 50% of what we have invested this year”, he added.

During his speech, Caputo highlighted that “mortgage loans increased in August at a 40% rate monthly” and he forecasted that next year there will be “a mortgage credit boom”. In this sense, he said that in 2017, mortgage loans will amount approximately 50 billion pesos and in 2018, they would amount 10 billion per month.

In addition, the Minister of Finance said that “the Argentine financial system has a huge growing potential” and that “we have inherited the smallest capital market of the region”. “We hope Congress passes the Capital Market Bill after the elections”, Caputo added. Mr. Minister highlighted “the reforms that have favored the development of this market which is growing almost 40% annually” and he added: “We want to give SMEs financing options and the capital market is an essential tool. We want financing to reach citizens and SMEs”.

Finally, Caputo talked about financial inclusion and he explained that an improvement in this sense will enable the reduction of poverty and the development of competitiveness for enterprises. Financial inclusion will allow every sector of the society to access credit in transparent competitive conditions and it will guarantee Argentinians the savings capacity. “We want everyone to grow”, Caputo concluded.