Benchmark
Argentina Is Racking Up Debt Even Faster Than During Its 2001-2002 Crisis
The country's budget balance swung into a big deficit in March, from a modest surplus only a year earlier
People stand outside the Pink House, the residence of Argentinian presidents past and present. Photographer: Diego Levy/Bloomberg
Diego Levy/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
One gets a strange sense of deja vu looking at Argentina accumulate debt even faster than in 2001, the year of its infamous default.
The government announced last week that the primary deficit, which excludes debt payments, jumped to 17.4 billion pesos ($1.93 billion) in March, compared with a 3.6 billion peso surplus just one year earlier. The last time Argentina posted a shortfall for March was in 2002, three months after reneging on a record $95 billion of debt.