During his visit to Russia, to participate in the 27th International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, El Salvador’s Vice President, Felix Ulloa, gave an interview to the Russian RT channel in which he assured that the country is about to reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Although he did not explain further details about it, Ulloa referred to the issue when consulted for the diversification of sources from which the government of El Salvador has obtained funding to carry out its projects.
The vice president indicated that El Salvador has tried to diversify its sources of funding, beyond traditional multilateral agencies. In that context, Ulloa mentioned the IMF and said that El Salvador has always tried to diversify its foreign debt, not only have we stayed with traditional institutions, such as the World Bank; IMF, with whom we are about to close an agreement.
El Salvador is negotiating an agreement with the IMF to raise funds of $1.3 billion since March 2021, without it being able to materialize to date. One of the main obstacles has been the decision of the El Salvador government to adopt bitcoin as a currency of legal circulation in the country.
However, Ulloa also referred to this and noted that these IMF observations were already overcome by El Salvador, although he did not go deeper to say how the mismies had been overcome.
We overperformed some of the observations that had been made to us, especially precisely because of the bitcoin issue, but this is already overdone.
Felix Ulloa, Vice President of El Salvador
The legalization of bitcoin generated problems from the beginning in the negotiation between El Salvador and the IMF, because the latter requested that the measure be reversed and transparent, without the El Salvador government agreeing to these requests.
In addition to bitcoin, the IMF has also made recommendations to El Salvador that have not been taken into account either, as are they: developing a comprehensive fiscal and financing plan, regular pension assessment assessments on the basis of an independent actuarial study, implementation of measures to restore financial stability mattresses, audits of emergency spending by the 2020 pandemic and publication of macro-fiscal and medium-term financing plans.
El Salvador has not heeded any of the previous recommendations, and Ulloa also did not allude to them in his interview with RT, in the sense of explaining whether they will be attended to or whether they had already been overcome.
They’re looking for funding.
In the interview, Ulloa also referred to the search for the government of El Salvador for sources of funding in order to carry out its projects. In that sense, Ulloa did not rule out the government’s stunning with the so-called BRICS as soon as it enables the option of providing loans.
We have left the region and now we are part of the CAF (Latin America Development Bank), in South America, and there we also want to open a portfolio in order to be subject to credit and apply to CAF financing. So when BRICS opens the options we will surely be attentive and be able to present our portfolio and portfolio of credits,
Felix Ulloa, Vice President of El Salvador
BRICS is an economic, political and social alliance made up of economies of countries considered emerging, and originally born with the economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
This article has been translated after first appearing in La Prensa Grafica