Argentina pushed interest rates to a record high of 60% today.
Argentina’s central bank on Thursday raised its benchmark interest by 15 percentage points to 60 percent, the highest in the world, after the peso plummeted to a new record low, Bloomberg news reported today.
According to the report, “the move comes one day after President Mauricio Macri announced he had requested the International Monetary Fund to speed up disbursements from a $50 billion credit line, in order to demonstrate the country had enough cash on hand to fund the 2019 budget without going further into debt.”
Earlier on Thursday the peso fell to a fresh record low of 40 to the U.S. dollar. It pared some of its declines following the central bank announcement. The peso is down 49 percent this year, the report concluded.
The move is reminiscent of moves by the Bank of Jamaica and sanctioned by the ministry of finance heading then by Dr. Davies that did enormous damage to the Jamaican economy from which the country has not fully recovered.
