ARGENTINA: Minister To Present Spending Freeze Bill In Congress

(RTTNews) - Argentina's Finance Minister Nicolás Dujovne will present a Fiscal Responsibility Bill to the Congress, for the purpose of reducing the budget imbalance in the country.

The Fiscal Responsibility Bill was developed by the national government and agreed with the provinces to control public expenditure in all jurisdictions.

The bill establishes that the provinces will not be able to increase the public expense above the inflation, which implies a spending freeze, in real terms.

The project aims to guarantee the fiscal solvency of the national and provincial public accounts and to reduce the primary deficit in the general budget to 3.2% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2018 and 2.2% in 2019.

The most recent data shows that from January until July the Argentinean government primary deficit was at 1.7% of the GDP. The fiscal target for this year is a primary deficit of 4.2% of the country's GDP.