On April 6, the Executive Branch passed Decree 346/2020, which extended payments on the national debt in dollars due this year, until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The measure defers interest payments and the capital amortization of the debt in dollars issued under Argentine law until December 31, 2020, or until a previous date determined by the Ministry of Economy, considering the degree of progress to restore sustainability.

The exceptions to this are non-transferable dollar-denominated Treasury Bills held by the Central Bank, and the Bills directly subscribed by the Sustainability Guarantee Fund (FGS) of the National Social Security Administration (Anses, in Spanish).

Meanwhile, the initiative authorizes the Ministry of Economy to carry out liability management operations and/or exchange and/or restructure securities whose payments are deferred, to ensure the sustainability of public debt. This must be compatible with the recovery of the economy and the improvement of basic social indicators.

Furthermore, through Decree 347/2020, the Government created a committee to evaluate and monitor the Emergency Assistance Program for Labor and Production, involving the Ministries of Productive Development, Economy, Labor, Employment and Social Security and the Federal Administration of Public Revenues (AFIP, for its acronym in Spanish). One of the committee’s tasks is to issue an opinion of the various economic sectors and recommend or discourage their inclusion in the Programme’s criteria.