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courage is contagious

Viewing cable 07BUENOSAIRES1591, COUNCIL OF THE AMERICAS CONFERENCE: GOA CHARM

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Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
07BUENOSAIRES1591 2007-08-14 15:24 2011-08-25 00:00 UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Embassy Buenos Aires
VZCZCXYZ0008
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHBU #1591/01 2261524
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 141524Z AUG 07
FM AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 8911
INFO RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC
RUCPDOC/USDOC WASHINGTON DC
RHMFIUU/HQ USSOUTHCOM MIAMI FL
RUEHAC/AMEMBASSY ASUNCION 6448
RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS 1410
RUEHMN/AMEMBASSY MONTEVIDEO 6656
RUEHSG/AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO 0670
RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA 6304
RUEHSG/AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO 0671
RUEHLP/AMEMBASSY LA PAZ AUG SAO PAULO 3470
RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO 2303
UNCLAS BUENOS AIRES 001591 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
WHA FOR WHA/BSC AND WHA/EPSC 
E FOR THOMAS PIERCE 
EEB/CBA FOR FMERMOUND 
PASS USTR FOR KATHERINE DUCKWORTH AND MARY SULLIVAN 
PASS NSC FOR DPRICE AND MSMART 
PASS FED BOARD OF GOVERNORS FOR PATRICE ROBITAILLE 
TREASURY FOR MMALLOY, LTRAN 
USDOC FOR 4322/ITA/MAC/OLAC/PEACHER 
US SOUTHCOM FOR POLAD 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EINV ECON ENRG PREL VZ AR
SUBJECT: COUNCIL OF THE AMERICAS CONFERENCE: GOA CHARM 
OFFENSIVE 
 
Ref: (a) Buenos Aires 1545 
     (b) Buenos Aires 1544 
     (c) Buenos Aires 1519 
     (d) Buenos Aires 1517 
     (e) Buenos Aires 1514 
     (f) Buenos Aires 1456 
     (g) Buenos Aires 1415 
 
------- 
Summary 
------- 
 
1. (SBU) The GoA used this year's Council of the Americas 
conference in Buenos Aires both to claim economic success 
and to stress its interest in U.S. investment.  The high 
profile GoA presence, and particularly presidential 
candidate Cristiana Kirchner's wrap-up speech, have been 
widely seen as an effort to add balance to Argentina's 
foreign relations which had tipped noticeably to Venezuela 
in many observers minds.  The Council of the Americas' 
leadership gave Senator Kirchner a very warm welcome which 
was apparently intended to encourage her recent signals of 
taking a more open approach to international affairs, while 
she is still defending the model her husband has 
championed.  Some have been critical of the Council's 
approach because serious questions about the sustainability 
of the model and investor confidence have yet to be 
addressed.  That said, the Senator's signs of openness to 
other countries and perspectives are important given her 
strong lead in the presidential polls. 
End Summary 
 
------------------------------ 
The GoA: Upbeat and On-Message 
------------------------------ 
 
2. (SBU) On August 7, key GoA Ministers and Cristina 
Kirchner addressed an "Innovation to Consolidate Growth" 
conference organized by the Council of the Americas. 
Speakers included the Chief of Cabinet Alberto Fernandez, 
Planning Minister Julio de Vido, Finance Minister Miguel 
Peirano, Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Taiana, and 
President of the Central Bank Martin Redrado.  All of them 
took credit for 55 months of consecutive economic growth 
and ratified the main tenets of the current GoA economic 
model: maintaining a consistent primary fiscal surplus, 
sustaining a "competitive" undervalued currency (and linked 
trade surplus), holding sizeable foreign currency reserves 
to cushion the economy against external shocks, and 
actively promoting and protecting Argentina's growing 
industrial sector. 
 
--------------------------------------------- 
Planning Minster De Vido: What Energy Crisis? 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
3. (SBU) Planning Minister De Vido, as in his recent 
public and private statements (Refs E, F), denied there is 
an energy shortage and attributed recent GoA electricity 
and gas rationing to industrial users to a combination of 
the coldest winter in 45 years, drought conditions that 
have restricted hydro production and record GDP growth that 
has boosted demand.  He did not address industry charges 
that current shortages are the outcome of the GoA's serial 
interventions in the hydrocarbon and electricity sectors 
and below-market caps on refined hydrocarbons and 
electricity prices.  De Vido said that current energy 
"constraints" will be fully addressed by GoA plans to bring 
on-line over 4,000 MW of new generating capacity in 2008/9, 
 
 
 
including the 745 MW Atucha II nuclear facility, 1,600 MW 
from the two FONINVENMEM generators due to come on-line in 
2009, 910 MW in energy savings from the GoA's Total Energy 
initiative, and 1,600 MW of capacity from a recently 
announced tender by state-owned energy company ENARSA to 
acquire seven new electricity turbines (Ref F).  President 
Kirchner, he said, will visit Bolivia August 10 to affirm 
recent agreements to expand natural gas pipelines and to 
have Argentina fund a gas drying plant on the Bolivian side 
of the border to be linked to the pipeline. 
 
--------------------------------------------- 
Cabinet Chief Fernandez: Transiting Purgatory 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
4. (SBU) Chief of Cabinet Alberto Fernandez lauded GoA 
economic performance to date and said that the Kirchner 
administration had significantly improved institutional 
quality by restricting the ability of the GoA to appoint 
Supreme Court judges.  "We have come from another reality 
and are now back in the world," he said, adding that 
Argentina had left the "hell" of the 2001/2 economic 
crisis, was successfully transiting the "purgatory" of 
economic and political renewal, but was not quite yet at 
the doors of a "paradise" where the crisis' legacy of 
misery, indigence and societal disorder have been fully 
overcome.  Fernandez predicted that Argentine growth would 
stabilize at Chile-like rates of five to six percent.  He 
offered that Argentina needs to reinsert itself in the 
international community, saying that "up to now we have 
governed in emergency, but now we will govern with the 
rules of normality."  Finally, in response to a question 
from a Dow Jones reporter on the recent outsized jump in 
Argentina's country risk premium, Fernandez attributed the 
increase entirely to sub-prime induced market volatility, 
 
discounting any connection to increasing domestic inflation 
and/or GoA efforts to low-ball headline inflation 
statistics. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
BCRA Governor Redrado: Passing Market Volatility Test 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
 
5. (SBU)  Central Bank (BCRA) President Martin Redrado 
defended Argentina's "administered" float and argued that 
the BRCA's successful defense of the peso's trading range 
during the prior week's extraordinary market volatility was 
proof that the GoA's monetary and reserve accumulation 
policies are working well to discourage speculation.  He 
called Argentine banks solid and noted they are 
increasingly using local capital markets to fund their 
growth. The progressive drop in public sector assets held 
in private bank asset portfolios (from over 60% at the peak 
of the economic crisis to under 20% currently), he said, is 
freeing up reserves to support private sector growth. 
Redrado cited Chile's successful taming of high inflation 
rates in the 1980s and said that Argentina is studying the 
examples of neighboring countries that have successfully 
transitioned out of economic crisis.  Lowering Argentine 
inflation rates, he concluded, will take the coordinated 
management of fiscal policy, dampening wage rate demands, 
maintenance of a "competitive" exchange rate, and monetary 
policy tools. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
Economy Minister Peirano: Industrial Promotion Focus 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
6. (SBU)  Like his peers, Peirano ratified the main pillars 
 
 
 
of the economic model (twin surpluses, an undervalued 
exchange rate, and accumulation of international reserves) 
but placed special emphasis on "active" GoA promotion of 
sector-specific initiatives to promote industrial 
development. (Note: This emphasis was widely interpreted in 
the media as support for continued protectionist trade 
policy and subsidized energy prices.)  Peirano also 
emphasized the importance of sustaining "the internal 
market." (Note: This is widely understood code for 
maintaining a weak currency and deploying consumption- 
boosting measures such as salary hikes and tax breaks.  His 
comment came after an increase last month in the minimum 
non-taxable income level - of up to 900 pesos per month per 
household - which critics described as a fiscally 
irresponsible pre-election gift to voters.  End Note). 
Peirano focused the remainder of his remarks on trade and 
industrial promotion, noting Argentina's active 
participation in Mercosur consolidation talks and in 
multilateral Doha agriculture and NAMA negotiations.  He 
did not address Paris Club or bond holdout issues managed 
by his Ministry. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
Candidate Cristina Kirchner: Few Specifics, But... 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
7. (SBU) The Council of the Americas conference was re- 
convened in the late afternoon to accommodate the schedule 
of Senator, First Lady and front-runner Presidential 
candidate Cristina Kirchner.  In a 45-minute speech without 
notes, Kirchner defended the Argentine-specific model of 
growth and development championed by her husband but 
presented it in a less confrontational style designed to 
suggest some room for evolution ahead.  She called 
Argentina "a good place to do business," dismissed the 
energy crisis (calling a California blackout she had 
personally experienced "no big deal") and defended the 
GoA's "accumulation model", which she said had restored 
jobs and household spending power and had "reinserted 
Argentina into the world."  Kirchner claimed that a 
competitive exchange rate had created a diversified 
economy, which - along with a flexible, publicly educated 
workforce - left the country more resilient to outside 
shocks.  She called for a domestic social pact between 
state, business, and workers to define long-term policies. 
Kirchner also outlined that Argentina needs to build on its 
advantages in the high tech and services areas which have 
attracted new investments in part because of Argentina's 
talented and relatively plentiful college educated 
population. 
 
------------------------------------ 
Private Economists:  Call to Realism 
------------------------------------ 
 
8. (SBU) Standard & Poor's sovereign analyst Sebastian 
Briozzo and Merrill Lynch economist Pablo Goldberg 
highlighted worrisome trends in inflation, in energy 
infrastructure and in the government's capacity to borrow 
money and warned that the GoA's expansionary economic 
policies are increasing its vulnerability to external 
shocks.  Briozzo said the country's continued fiscal 
surplus and a less vulnerable debt structure, with long- 
dated bond maturities, makes it less susceptible to shocks 
than it was before the 2001/2 financial crisis.  But he 
also warned that absolute debt levels remain high; 
Argentina is overly dependence on commodity exports; 
Argentina has failed to "consolidate political 
sustainability;" and it has a damaging reputation for 
 
 
 
changing "the rules of the game."  He observed that "we 
will see more (structural) bottlenecks and we want to see 
how Argentina breaches its history of volatility," citing 
the country's boom-bust economic record of the past half 
century. 
 
9. (SBU) Goldberg called the decline in the primary budget 
surplus to 2.7% of GDP (the Merrill Lynch forecasts for 
2007) a disturbing result, given that GDP has grown by 51% 
since 2002 while the surplus has averaged 3.3%. That the 
GoA has not used this growth to develop a bigger fiscal 
buffer means "Argentina is not investing in macroeconomic 
insurance against future shocks," he said.  Goldberg added 
that the GoA's intervention in the national statistics 
agency (INDEC) and blatant manipulation of inflation rates 
have seriously damaged its financing flexibility, since 
bondholders no longer trust the pricing mechanism for bonds 
linked to the consumer price index.  Argentina can now 
neither issue at fixed rates or with inflation-indexed 
bonds, Goldberg said. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
Ambassador's Dinner i/h/o Council President Segal 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
10. (U) On August 6, Ambassador hosted a dinner for COA 
President Susan Segal with a group of 25 business leaders 
who are supporters of the COA and strong proponents of 
closer ties to the United States.  Attendees included 
Carlos de la Vega, President of the Argentine Chamber of 
Commerce; Eduardo Eurnekian, President of Aeropuertos 2000; 
Julio Werthein, President of the InterAmerican Commerce and 
Production Council; Adelmo Gabbi, President of the Buenos 
Aires Stock Exchange; Enrique Mantilla, President of the 
Export Chamber of Commerce; Eduardo Pablo Amadeo, Former 
Ambassador to the U.S.; Felipe Rovera, President of GM 
Argentina; Juan Bruchou, President of Citibank; Jorge 
Brito, President, Banco of Macro Bansud; Eduardo Elsztain, 
Chairman of IRSA; Clarisa Estol, President of Banco 
Hipotecario; Marcelo Mindlin, Chairman of the Grupo 
Dolphin; Miguel A. Gutierrez, Partner of TRG Management 
(The Rohaytn Group); Alixandre Schijman, Executive Director 
for Global Policy of Time Warner; Luis Ribaya, Director, 
Banco Galicia; and Maria Garana Corces, Regional Director 
for the Southern Cone, Microsoft. 
 
11. (SBU) A number of the guests arrived after attending a 
ceremony at the Casa Rosada with Hugo Chavez.  They 
commented that Chavez' remarks were longwinded, but that 
overall the ceremony and his visit to Buenos Aires were low 
key.  All of the guests expressed their appreciation for 
the role the Council plays in providing Argentine officials 
a forum to reach out to the business community in a 
collegial atmosphere.  While all expressed some concern 
about growing economic distortions, most believed that 
Argentina will continue to grow and feel that a Cristina 
Kirchner follow-on administration will be in a better 
position to take steps to address these distortions. 
 
------- 
Comment 
------- 
 
12. (SBU) At the conference, private economists' warnings 
on growing distortions stood in stark contrast to the 
uniformly upbeat outlook offered by government officials. 
Cristina Kirchner's participation, immediately following a 
visit by Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, was broadly 
viewed as a sign that she intends to cultivate stronger 
 
 
 
relations with the United States.  Though her campaign 
describes her as a "candidate of change," her Council 
speech's defense of Argentina's "accumulation" model 
suggests that she intends to continue applying the current 
mix of heterodox macro- and micro-economic policies with 
only slight initial modifications.  There is much agreement 
among private sector economists, bankers and business 
leaders, however, that more significant and painful 
adjustments in the model will be required to sustain 
Argentine economic growth. 
 
13. (SBU) Given Cristina Kirchner's large lead in the 
polls, many private sector leaders who attended the Council 
of the Americas event said privately that they believe the 
best hope for policy change is to encourage the signs of 
openness to other points of view in the Senator's 
pronouncements and to work behind the scenes to influence 
her thinking and that of her future advisors.  This was 
clearly the tact taken by the organizers of the Council 
event.  This is far from a sure thing, but it may well be 
the most helpful path in the near term for those seeking 
economic policy shifts in Argentina. 
WAYNE