BRASÍLIA (dpa-AFX) – In view of the severe economic and financial crisis in Argentina, President Alberto Fernández is looking for support in neighboring Brazil. He met with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for talks in the Brazilian capital Brasília on Tuesday. “Brazil and Argentina are brother countries and we will have increasingly successful relationships with one of our country’s and industry’s largest trading partners,” Lula wrote on Twitter. “Together we are stronger.”
The two presidents wanted to negotiate credit lines for Argentinian companies that buy products exported by Brazilian companies, Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad told the G1 news portal. According to media reports, the Argentine government also wants to ensure that transactions are settled in Brazilian reais instead of US dollars in order to conserve the central bank’s recently dangerously low dollar reserves. It had recently concluded a similar agreement with China.
Most recently, the already ailing Argentine economy had come under even greater pressure. The central bank’s dollar reserves had fallen sharply due to the poor harvest and the resulting lack of foreign exchange earnings. In addition, the Argentine peso lost significant value against the dollar. The inflation rate in the second largest economy in South America is now over 100 percent./dde/DP/zb