Since Mauricio Macri’s election as Argentina’s president in 2015, the country has earned praise from market practitioners, investors and trade partners alike by re-engaging with the international community and normalising its economy. Latin America’s third largest economy had been cut off from the markets since its disastrous 2001 sovereign debt default and the bitter legal battle with holdout investors that followed.
Foreign claims settled, the new administration has passed a number of important reforms that introduced fiscal discipline and will hopefully improve competitiveness. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth for 2017 is expected to have reached about 3% and is set to rise further in 2018; the primary fiscal deficit has become a key target and was reduced to 3.9% in 2017, with a plan to slash it further to 1.2% by 2020. Inflation is under control, managed by an independent central bank, and hovering at about 25%, down from 41.2% in 2016, and set to decrease further to 15% by the end of 2018.