Аргентина
ARGENTINA
Argentina has experienced slow economic growth since the 1940s.
By the mid-1970s long-term growth declined noticeably, and in
the last half of the 1980s the country suffered its longest
period of stagnation in the century. Savings and investment
rates fell precipitously from the mid-1970s until 1989.
Argentines, responding to the unstable macroeconomic
environment, increasingly saved and invested abroad. Labor
productivity fell ang poverty worsened. This economic
performance was tranceable to chronic public sector deficits and
endemic inflation. Public sector deficits in the late 1970s
ranged from 10 to 14 percent of GDP, and in the early 1980s
surpassed IS percent of GDP. After the return to constitutional
democracy in 1983, public demands to control inflation were
translated into four successive stabilization programs. All
failed to eradicate inflation, and each ended in a more virulent
inflation than the one preceding it. The main reason for these
failures was the inability of the stabilization programs to
redress rapidly and permanently the public sector structural
deficit. Structural deficits emerged from the post-war
organization of the economy. Economic policy from the 1940s was
used to propagate rules and transfers favoring the interests of
private groups with access to power. By the early 1980s public
expenditures approached 40 percent of GDP. Unionized labor
benefitted from high wages, guaranteed employment, and rigid
rules governing hiring and dismissals. Industry benefitted from
highly protected markets, tax exemptions through special
promotion regimes, subsidized credit-or effective grants, as
many loans were not collected-subsidized inputs from public
enterprises, and high prices on sales to public enterprises.
Housing contractors and middleclass home buyers benefitted from
enormous public transfers through earmarked taxes and effective
grants through the Housing Bank. Tobacco growers, sugar growers,
the merchant marine, and other small interest groups enjoyed
special tax breaks. Consumers enjoyed below-cost tariffs from
public enterprise and lax collectioll practices. Provincial
governments could avail themselves of costless credit from the
provincial banks, which the central bank reimbursed. The
military enjoyed expanding budgets, especially over 1976-82, as
well as management perquisites in state companies they
controlled. By 1989 subsidies through the budget, tax
exemptions, agriculcural regulations, public enterprise tariffs,
and central bank rediscounts were estimated to amount to roughly
8 percent of GDP--the equivalent of some $8 billion. The growth
of the state and concomitant rents and subsidies, along with the
capital flight provoked by an inconsistent exchange rate policy,
were financed during the late 1970s largely by external
borrowing through the expanding Eurodollar market at low or even
negative real international interest rates. This permitted the
government to run large deficits and sustain a revalued exchange
rate with relatively low levels of inflation in the second half
of the 1970s. An abrupt end to voluntary foreign commercial
credit in the early 1980s and the sudden rise in real
international interest rates provoked a financial collapse and
placed additional pressure on public finances. The situation was
complicated by the South Atlantic War. The loss of external
finance and lack of adjustment meant the treasury had to resort
to increased inflationary finance through monetary creation. The
private sector, in an effort to avoid the resulting inflation
tax, gradually withdrew its resources from the financial system
and reduced its real holdings of currency ; this, together with
the negative effects of inflation on real tax collections, made
Argentina's economy progressively more unstable in the 1980s.
Even though the deficit fell from near 20 percent of GDP in the
early 1980s to an average of about 10 percent over 1987-89, the
base for the inflation tax shrank even faster--efforts to reduce
the deficit were not fast or permanent enough to convince the
private sector that savings in domestic currency would not be
eroded by inflation. Inflation became high and unpredictable,
and the main impediment to the recovery of private savings and
investment. The decade ended with two episodes of hyperinflation
in 1989.
Post-1989 Structural Reforms
Tbe present administration took office in July 1989 during a
traumatic hyperinflation--July inflation alone was 200 percent.
This culminated a decade-long crisis in public finance. The new
team inherited weak public institutions accustomed to deficit
spending and with an institutionalized reliance on the inflation
tax. In addition, claims on state revenues were far greater than
its capacity to mobilize resources-in short, the Argentine state
was insolvent. The government undertook stabilization programs
in 1989 and 1990. Neither succeeded, principally because of the
intractability of the fiscal deficit. The first terminated in a
new hyperinflation at the end of 1989 and in early 1990. The
second lasted from March 1990 to December 1990 and ended in a
new inflationary outburst but, unlike the previous breakdowns,
the economy did not spin into hyperinflation. Instead, a new
fiscal package in February 1991 was sufficient to close the
remaining fiscal gap. This was followed by the April 1, 1991 Law
of Convertibility fixing the local currency to the dollar and
effectively proscribing money creation other than to buy net
foreign reserves. The convertibility program disciplines
monetary policy and limits the power of the government to
finance its deficit through inflation. The law markedly reduced
the foreign exchange rate risk to investors and the inflation
risk to business and labor--as long as the fiscal fundamentals
are in place to support it. The February 1991 program was able
to close the gap in large measure because the government's
sustained structural reform efforts had progressively improved
the foundations of public finance. The government had undertaken
difficult to reverse reforms in the legal framework,
institutions, and policies. These included institutional reforms
of the federal government, public enterprises, and
federal-provincial fiscal relations, and restructuring
liabilities with domestic and foreign creditors to adjust them
to serviceable levels. Other reforms have helped elicit
efficient private investment, notably trade, deregulation, and
financial sector reform.
Federal Government
The government undertook a major effort to improve revenues
through the implementation of a much-broad- ened and uniform
value added tax first to goods in February 1990, and later
extended to services in Novem- ber 1990. The government also
improved the efficiency of the tax administration in 1989,
establishing a control system for the largest taxpayers that
took effect in February 1991. The tax penalty law, adopted by
Con- gress in 1990, provided much needed sanctions for tax
non-compliance. The tax package of February 1991 improved the
quality of revenue mobilization substan- tially because it
eliminated export taxes, reduced pro- gressively during 1990 and
early 1991, deducted higher taxes on financial transactions from
the income/asset tax, and removed several minor taxes. In
December 1992 subsidies to industrial promotion were
substantially cut by replacing self-monitored tax deductions
with a tax bond program. These efforts cumulatively produced
dramatic rises in tax collections from the third quarter of 1991
on. The increase in value added tax collection allowed the
government to eliminate inefficient taxes, such as the fuel tax
and the stamp tax, in November 1992, and several specific sales
taxes in May 1993. Federal employment decreased from 671,000 to
284,000, including 103,000 layoffs and 284,000 teachers and
health workers transferred to provincial payrolls. This effort
was based on a ministerial reorganization that focused federal
activities on core objectives, and improvements in the civil
service system through an improved salary structure and
efficiency measures. The government was able to increase average
salaries and partially restore salary differentials. The
government took several measures to strengthen budgeting
procedures and expenditure controls. By 1993 it had eliminated
105 of the 151 earmarked accounts extant in 1990, and reduced
the coverage of earmarked taxes. The September 1992 Law of
Public Financial Management will permit comprehensive budgeting,
effective internal expenditure control, and provide for new
external auditing The government has embarked on several
reforms to separate the central bank from the nonfinancial
public sector and establish it as an effective independent
monetary authority. The elimination of the central bank's
domestic short-term interest-bearing obligations by means of
their conversion into external treasury bonds in January 1990 in
effect was a first step toward recapitalizing the central bank.
The Law of Convertibility established a money-creation rule that
effectively limits monetary policy and central bank inflationary
financing of public sector deficits. Since early 1991 the
central bank has published financial statements that reveal its
balance sheet; since April 1991 it has published its reserve
position weekly so the public can monitor implementation of the
Law of Convertibility. In September 1992 a
new law strengthened the central bank's autonomy, and further
restricted its ability to extend credit to the government and
the banking system. This measure reinforces the convert- ibility
law, and paves the way for an independent, disciplined, monetary
authority. In addition, the cen- trai bank intends to complete
the process of removing functions ancillary to the functions of
a monetary authority by transferring legal authority for failed
institutions to the courts.
Public Enterprises
The government has carried out one of the most impressive
privatization programs in the Western Hemisphere. The objective
was to reduce the budgetary burden of the enterprises, make the
firms more competitive, and increase the volume and efficiency
of new investment. The privatization program began in earnest in
1990 and gained credibility with the sale of national
telecommunications company in November 1990. The program removed
politics from price setting in the formerly vast segment of the
economy covered by the state. The change in the institutional
organization of these sectors cut off public subsidies to
consumers and labor groups benefitting from high wages and
excess staffing, and transfers for investment. The program also
improved public finances: about $9 billion in capital receipts
helped close fiscal accounts in 1991 and 1992 and external debt
was reduced by $12 billion. Major privatizations included
television stations, the telephone company, Aerolineas
Argentinas, gas distribution and transmission, and the majority
of the national oil company. It granted road and railroad
concessions to the private sector, privatized long distance
cargo lines, and sharply reduced the railway's work force. The
government privatized other public enterprises, including
defense industries, the nation's largest distributor of
electricity, ports and maritime transport, reinsurance, and the
entire power sector. Future privatization plans include the
national airport system.
Fiscal Relationships with the Provinces
The government also sought to restructure fiscal relation ships
with the provinces. The Coparticipation Law of 1988, fixed the
share of federal revenues automatically transferred to the
provinces at 58 percent. In August 1992 a portion of tax
revenues was assigned to the social security system before
computing revenue sharing. At the same time, the resources
provincial governments could access were limited by
progressively terminating central bank lending to provincial
banks. The government also reduced extra-coparticipation
transfers through the budget. To offset aggregate increases in
resources as national tax collection improved, the government
also transferred expenditures to provincial administrations,
notably secondary education and hospitals, and to the social
security system in August 1992.
Debt Restructuring
The final step in dealing with the government's insolvency
involved restructuring its debt obligations. The government had
financed its deficit through borrowing from the financial
system, suspending payment to external creditors, and
accumulating arrears with pensioners and suppliers.
Restructuring each of these required major initiatives. Although
the government ended new rediscounts to the housing and
industrial banks, and liberal rediscounts to provincial banks in
1988, the central bank continued money emission to finance the
treasury and its own deficit. In late December 1989, faced with
rising central bank deficits and the renewed threat of
hyperinflation, the government took the drastic step of
converting domestic, short-term (mainly seven-day),
interest-bearing obligations of the central bank into $3.5
billion 10-year dollar-denominated treasury bonds. This
virtually eliminated the central bank's quasifiscal deficit and
the monetary emission necessary to finance it-at the cost of
penalizing savers and reducing already low confidence in the
financial system. In April 1988 the government suspended payment
on its external debt to commercial creditors. By 1992 it had
accumulated $8 billion in arrears as part of a $32 billion
medium-term commercial bank debt. Public external debt was $61
billion. The government re-initiated partial payments in June
1990, and established a consistent record of paying about 25
percent of interest due. At the same time, it allowed external
debt to be used in exchange for the sale of assets, which
reduced the debt stock by $7 billion. The progressive
improvement in fiscal fundamentals in 1990/91 allowed the
government to begin negotiations with commercial banks on a debt
reduction deal. An external debt agreement signed on April 7,
1993, reduced $28 billion in commercial bank debt by
approximately 37 percent, and eliminated interest arrears. This
debt deal is expected to improve Argentina's creditworthiness.
The agreement formalized arrears in a 12-year uncollateralized
bond at LIBOR plus 13/16 with a 3-year grace period, after a
$700 million downpayment. Existing debt was exchanged for
collateralized par bonds with a fixed interest rate, or
collateralized discount bonds at 65 percent of face value paying
LIBOR. The new collateralized bonds will have a 12-month rolling
interest guarantee. For most of the last decade, the government
has paid only about half the legally mandated pensions owed
social security recipients. Arrearages were not recorded in the
fiscal accounts, but are estimated to be as high as $7 to 10
billion. To stop the accumulation of arrears, the government
modified coparticipation in tax revenues in favor of the social
securiry system in August 1992. Since then, the social security
system has run a small operating surplus. The government also
accumulated arrears in 1990 with suppliers through formal
suspension of payment on goods and services already provided,
and the health funds have arrears with their service providers
that will also result in new debt. Finally, the government, as
part of its income tax reform, suspended poorly designed loss
carry forward deductions for the corporate income tax, and
agreed to issue compensatory bonds. To settle these claims,
Congress authorized the government to issue consolidation bonds.
The service of this debt will be capitalized until 1997, but
payments on the order of $3 billion will be required in the last
years of the decade. The federal government's share of the
proceeds of the privatization of the state oil company is
earmarked for repurchasing some of the consolidation bonds.
Social Security Reform
The government has moved towards replacing a failed public
pension system. In mid-1992 it submitted a law introducing a
combined state/private system: the state would supply a uniform
basic pension financed on a pay as you go basis while the
private sector would supply pension funds. Membership in both
schemes would be mandatory. The lower house of the Argentine
Congress passed the law-with significant modifications--in May
1993. The government expects the legislative process to be
completed before the end of the year, allowing a new system to
be established in mid-1994.
Trade, Deregulation and Financial Reforms
In 1991 the government accelerated and largely completed a trade
liberalization program that began in laIe 1986, but had suffered
temporary reversals in 1989. Virtually all export taxes and
quantitative restrictionsexcept for automobiles--were
eliminated. The maximum ad valorem tariff was reduced from 115
to 35 percent. The deterioration in the trade balance in 1992,
a consequence of massive capital inflows motivated government to
use commercial policy to achieve effective devaluation within
the fixed exchange rate regime. Exporter rebates were raised
from 8 to 13 percent. On the import side, the tariff band was
narrowed to O to 20 percent. The government also increased a
flat tariff surcharge, called a statistical tax, from 3 percent
to 10 percent on a temporary basis. This led to an effective
depreciation of about 5 percent. In May 1993 the government
eliminated both tariffs and the statistical tax on capital goods
imports, but in July it provided protection to some paper and
textile products through temporary import quotas and tariff
surcharges. A major domestic deregulation decree in October 1991
ended a series of market-impeding rules, dissolved several
regulatory bodies, and unified pension and health insurance
payments to reduce evasion. Subsequent decrees have deregulated
pharmaceutical impons and ports. The industrial promotion
program and subsidies to Tierra del Fuego were markedly reduced
in November 1992. The publicly-owned housing and development
banks, long subject to political influence and dependent on
government financial support, are undergoing major
restructuring. Branches of the National Development Bank and the
National Housing Bank have been closed since March 1990 and
their staffs have been reduced by almost 75 percent. The
government is liquidating the development bank and closing the
housing bank's retail functions. It has established a second
tier bank to be managed, and ultimately owned, by the private
sector to mobilize financing for its investment needs. In
response to a short-lived run on the peso in mid-November 1992
the authorities strengthened their commitments to the fixed
exchange rate regime by permitting reserve requirements to be
met either in foreign or domestic currency, and equalizing
reserve requirements on foreign and domestic
currency-denominated checking accounts in domestic transactions.
In February 1993 these measures were complemented by lowering
reserve requirements and further deregulating commercial bank
lending to the private sector. Term deposits under 30 days were
eliminated to increase the average maturity of deposits in the
domestic financial system and reduce the risks of a run on the
banks. Finally, since April 1993, bank compliance with reserve
requirements is based on a four-week moving average, which
should reduce the volatility of short-term interest rates .
Over the last six months Argentina has taken meas- ures to
reduce interest rates and stimulate investment. In October 1992
it imposed a 2 percent per month ceiling on loans made by public
banks, a measure also aimed at stimulating restructuring of
these banks. In March 1993 it began auctioning subsidy credits
to banks, with the winner of the subsidy being the bank that
offers to charge the lowest rates to final medium- and
small-scale industrial borrowers. In May 1993 the authorities
an- nounced the extension of the Banco de Nacion's credit
lines-the largest official bank--and a reduction in its lending
rates from 1.8 percent to 1.6 percent per month. They also
declared that the bank's credit policy will be oriented toward
export-oriented activities as well as agriculture, industry,
mining, and tourism.
Recent Macroeconomic Developments
In 1992 the authorities continued to adjust the economy,
extending the recent good economic performance. GDP grew by 8.7
percent, and industrial production grew in the 12 percent range
for the second year in a row. Employment rose by about 10
percent and investment expanded briskly in 1992, rising from
12.5 percent to 14.5 percent of GDP. The increased investment
was financed by external savings, with gross national sav- ings
declining moderately to 9.3 percent of GDP. Public savings rose
by about 2 percentage points of GDP, while private savings
fell. Fiscal performance has improved notably in the last two
years. The overall balance moved into surplus in 1992 for the
first time in decades with an operational primary surplus of 2.0
percent of GDP. Tax revenues increased from 13.5 percent of GDP
in 1989 to nearly 24 percent between in 1992. In the same
period, public expenditures fell as a percent of GDP. Capital
spending and non-privatization receipts both declined slightly.
The fiscal surplus also was improved by the drop in dollar
interest rate, which cut accrued interest obligations by 1.3
percent of GDP. However, interest obligations still exceeded the
operational primary surplus slightly in 1992. Inflation
continues to decelerate. The annualized inflation rate in the
last quarter of 1992 was about 9 percent, compared to over 20
percent a year earlier. Nonetheless, inflation still exceeds
international rates, which is necessary to sustain the fixed
exchange rate regime . During 1992 capital inflows, jointly with
the economic expansion, contributed to an 84 percent increase in
imports; exports rose by 1 percent. As a result, the current
account deficit for 1992 reached 5.2 percent of GDP, up from 2
percent a year ago. Capital inflows of $12.0 billion, mostly
private, more than offset the current account deficit, allowing
a $3.4 billion accumulation of reserves. After signs of slowdown
in economic activity during January and February 1993,
industrial production recovered in March and April, with the
first quarter of 1993 marking the eleventh consecutive month of
economic expansion. Capital inflows recovered in the first
quarter of 1993, further strengthening the level of
international reserves. The monthly inflation rate between
January and March 1993 averaged 0.7 percent, about the same as
the last quarter of 1992.
Medium-Term Prospects
The government projects real growth averaging 6.5 percent over
1992-95. Over this period its fiscal program for aims at
generating a primary surplus sufficient to finance interest
obligations, thus eliminating the need for the inflation tax.
This involves efforts to raise the primary balance from about
$3.3 billion in 1991 to about $4. 1 billion in 1995. The success
of this program will largely depend on medium-term reforms to
improve the structural underpinnings of public finance, such as
social security legislation, labor reforms, and the evolution of
the fiscal relationships with the provinces, given the
increasing decentralization of power and responsibilities from
the center to provincial governments . This scenario is
attainable if the government continues to improve its fiscal
position, and if private markets generate a smooth transition to
a sustainable balance of payments and growth path. There are
significant risks to this program. The probability of adverse
events affecting the convertible peso declines, however, as the
government progresses on reforms that improve the fundamentals
of public finance. Past reforms in the public sector anchor
stabilization and are unlikely to be reversed during any
financial turbulence. Also, reserves are the highest in a decade
and cover the monetary base (although not the deposit base),
which would deter a speculative attack on the peso. Even if
problems give rise to pressure to alter the policy framework, in
all likelihood any emerging policy regime would of necessity
focus on maintaining fiscal balance and policies conducive to
private investment. Over the last few years Argentina has
enacted serious and difficult structural reforms with
considerable public support. The lack of alternatives to fiscal
discipline and price stability, and memories of the
hyperinflation of 1989/90, have made stability politically
popular. These facts are powerful ballast that is likely to keep
the ship of structural adjustment headed in the same direction,
even in a financial storm.