The Minister of Finance, Luis Caputo, will be arriving this Tuesday to New York City, where he will be holding meetings with investors and representatives of different banks. During the afternoon, Caputo will travel to Washington D.C. to participate in high level meetings with executives of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank (WB), where he will address policy options regarding financial inclusion and regional business integration. The team of the Ministry of Finance consists of: the Chief of Cabinet of the Ministry of Finance, Pablo Quirno; the Secretary of Finance, Santiago Bausili; and the Undersecretary of International Financial Relations, Martin Soto.

On Wednesday afternoon, Caputo will preside, in his role of Governor before the IDB, the Ninth Meeting of Finance Ministers of the Americas and the Caribbean of the organization, attended by more than thirty countries. Later, he will give a press conference together with the President of the IDB, Luis Alberto Moreno.

In addition, Minister Caputo will meet, as Governor before the World Bank, with the President of the Institution, Jim Yong Kim. He will also hold a meeting with Jorge Familiar, Vice President of the World Bank for Latin America and the Caribbean.

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; and the Minister of Economy and Finance of Peru, Claudia Cooper. They will be also meeting with representatives of international banks and investment funds.

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.

During his first day in Berlin, the Minister of Finance, Luis Caputo, is having a meeting this afternoon with Marl Carney, Chairman of the FSB and Governor of the Bank of England. Later, the Minister of Finance will have dinner together with the representatives of the different countries before the Board which controls the stability of the financial system within the context of the G20.

Tomorrow, the Minister of Finance will hold a meeting to address FSB Governance issues and the renewal of the membership of the Regional Consultative Groups. Within the context of this meeting, the Chair of the FSB Nominations Committee, Jens Weidmann, will report on the process to identify a new Secretary General.

In addition, Caputo will attend the Standing Committee on Assessment of Vulnerabilities (SCAV) and the Early Warning Exercise (EWE) to discuss vulnerabilities affecting the global financial system and supervisory practices in G20 jurisdictions in the area of cybersecurity.

Friday morning, Caputo will describe before the FSB the planned priority themes under the finance track of the Argentine G20 Presidency. In addition, work on monitoring of risks from FinTech, policies regarding asset management and the progress level on the reforms of the international financial system will be addressed.

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) is an international body that monitors and makes recommendations about the global financial system. The FSB promotes international financial stability; it does so by coordinating national financial authorities and international standard-setting bodies as they work toward developing strong regulatory, supervisory and other financial sector policies. Embedded in the FSB’s structure is a framework for the identification of systemic risk in the financial sector, for framing the policy sector policy actions that can address these risks, and for overseeing implementation of those responses.

The Minister of Finance, Luis Caputo, together with the head of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Luis Alberto Moreno, offered a press conference to give details about the loans signed during the morning for USD 1.28 billion. These credits include financing for technological innovation programs, citizen safety, early childhood, strengthening of the statistical capacity of the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC, for its acronym in Spanish), transparency and integrity reforms, the improvement of General San Martin Railway and investment in water and sanitation services for the metropolitan area of the City of Buenos Aires.

By the end of 2017, the IDB will have approved USD 2.3 billion for technological innovation, citizen safety, education, transportation, water and sanitation services, institutional strengthening, transparency and financial security, urban development and regional integration projects such as the tunnels of Agua Negra (USD 130 million) and Cristo Redentor (USD 200 million). In addition, the IIC – which had already approved projects for USD 130 million – plans additional projects for USD 410 million.

The IDB has announced commitments for 2018 for an amount of USD 2.35 billion for the public sector (USD 2 billion correspond to Argentina’s annual quota and USD 300 million to resources for regional projects). In addition, the IIC has committed itself to USD 600 million.

Argentina, the IDB and the World Bank will create a Fund to Develop Infrastructure for a total amount of USD 900 million (USD 600 contributed by the IDB and USD 300 by the WB).

During the conference, given this afternoon at the Ministry’s building, Mr. Minister talked about the strategic support offered by the multilateral organization and he said: “It is a proof of the international community’s confidence in the reforms implemented in Argentina”. In this sense, Caputo highlighted the multilateral organization’s role in the regional growth agenda and in the development of infrastructure works in the country. At the end of the Government’s term, the IDB will have committed itself with around USD 10 billion of public and private resources. “We must recall that in December 2015, when President Macri took office, IDB commitment was of USD 6 billion. This number was broadly increased thanks to the confidence in this Administration”, the Minister of Finance highlighted.

Luis Alberto Moreno highlighted Argentina’s improvements in the consolidation of the economic growth and in the country’s efforts to improve the dynamics of its productive activity. “The reason why the IDB is strongly relying in Argentina is because the efforts to create confidence are evidenced in the economy and in how investors and the international financial community see the country today. Since President Macri took office, we have increased four times our activity in the country”, Moreno said.

Nowadays, the IDB has 62 projects in Argentina for a total amount of USD 10.1188 billion. The IIC has 18 projects in the country for a total amount of USD 550.3 million for the transportation, agro-business and financial entities sectors.

The signed Projects that will be financed by the IDB are the following:

– Technological Innovation Program V: USD 100 million

– Federal Security Program: USD 25 million

– Support to the National Plan of Early Childhood and to the Universalization of Early Education Program: USD 200 million

– Drinking Water and Sanitation for the Metropolitan area and the locations of the First, Second and Third section of Greater Buenos Aires Program: USD 305 million

– Improvement of General San Martin Railway Project: USD 400 million

– Strengthening of INDEC Statistical Capacity Program: USD 50 million

– Support to Transparency and Integrity Reforms Program: USD 200 million

The Minister of Finance, Luis Caputo, together with the Chief of Cabinet of the Ministry of Finance, Pablo Quirno, and the Secretary of Finance, Santiago Bausili, met this morning with Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic and Social Policies of Singapore.

At the meeting, they talked about Argentina as a potential destination for infrastructure investment, taking into account that Singapore invests almost every international reserve abroad.

The Assistant Managing Director, Der Jiun Joseph Chia; the Director of the Ministry of Finance, Chng Thien Alvin Lim; the Deputy Prime Minister’s Special Advisor, Zhang Yang Lim; the Senior Associate of the Ministry of Finance, Shan Ming Kenneth Kwan; and the Advisor Mei Chan Trina Chuang, attended the meeting representing Singapore.