La Nacion

Friday, September 14, 2012

WASHINGTON (From our correspondent).- New European countries and Canada joined yesterday in the rejection already exercised by the United States and Spain towards the concession of credits from the International Development Bank (IADB) to the country.  In every day, as has been happening, a new package of US$700 million in loans could still be approved yesterday thanks to the support from other countries in the region.  In addition to the increasing resistance, the credits in question suffered a delay of more than two months in being processed.

"In the worst case scenario, this resistance is a bad precedent for the IMF evaluation that will cover Argentina’s situation on Monday,” financial sources told LA NACION.  “Not always, but often countries bring their strategies from one entity to the other,” they added.

One of the credits, for US$500 million, is destined to finance water projects in the “Great North” of the country.  According to what LA NACION could report, it was approved despite the rejection of the United States and the so-called “Norway seat”, which includes representation from Spain and France, as well as Denmark, Austria and Finland.  Others decided to abstain.  The same was with the so-called “Italian seat” which includes representation from Germany, Belgium, Holland and Israel.  Canada, which votes on its own behalf, also abstained.

The second loan refers to a program of almost US$200 million for technology development.  In this case, there were no votes from the United States, Canada and the Norway seat, while the Italian seat again abstained.

For the last year, the U.S. has voted against loans for Argentina as a pressure signal for its “financial non-compliance”.  Months ago it was joined by Spain, in retaliation for the nationalization of YPF.  Far from those issues, the IADB yesterday pondered the quality of the programs and their expected impact on the country’s development.