Country Monitoring

TAC ECONOMICS provides comprehensive coverage over 100 emerging and developing countries. Our EM service includes regular publications (monthly comments, quarterly reports including analytics and forecasts on countries, currencies, industries, commodities) access to our team of economists, one-to-one presentations on our scenarios and access to our proprietary indicators, ratings and early warning signals.

Extract from our February Monthly Comments –
Country Focus on Argentina

• Argentina embarked on a politically driven path of imbalances and crises over a decade ago. The situation deteriorated further since 2020, marked by successive challenges including COVID-19, agricultural production collapses, and heightened political tensions. In November 2023, the election of “right-wing libertarian” Javier Milei as President added another layer of complexity to the country’s tumultuous landscape.
  

• The new administration’s swift currency and fiscal adjustments require a credible strategy to curb the FX-inflation spiral. This likely entails significant external financial assistance. However, these measures are anticipated to lead to another year of profound economic contraction in 2024.
• While our country-risk metrics indicate a somewhat improved medium-term economic outlook, the current high level of short-term uncertainty, coupled with intense political polarization and social tensions, advises a highly cautious approach.
• From our quantitative perspective, an Early Warning Signal was switched-on early 2023 for activity and possibly exchange rate shocks. As of end-2023, Argentina’s performances on our six Fundamental Balances were dismal, with only the Banking System showing some strength.