Video: Argentina – Challenges and Opportunities Facing 2017

Speakers:

• Roberto H. Sifón-Arévalo, Managing Director and Lead Analytical Manager, Sovereign and International Public Finance Ratings, Americas, S&P Global Ratings 
• María Victoria Murillo, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Columbia University 
• Mauro Roca, Senior Economist, Goldman Sachs 
• Juan Cruz Díaz, Special Advisor, Americas Society/Council of the Americas and Managing Director, Cefeidas Group (moderator)

Argentina's new government has taken steps to stabilize and open the economy but international investors remain wary. According to Goldman Sachs' Mauro Roca, they fear President Mauricio Macri's policy changes will be transitory given the country's history of Peronist governments and the fact that no non-Peronist administration has finished its four-year term for the last 80 years. It's in the Peronists' interest for Macri to finish his term though, said María Victoria Murillo in the AS/COA panel in New York, and if the government's coalition gains support in the 2017 legislative elections it would set the tone that the change is more permanent. But the best signal the country could give investors is showing a commitment to dealing with the large fiscal deficit, said Roberto H. Sifón-Arévalo.