Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez said Sunday the South American country is in virtual default and compared the situation with the 2001 crisis — the worst in its recent history. The country is in recession and has suffered 18 months of economic crisis sparked by a currency crash. At that time poverty was at 57 percent, today we have 41 percent poor people; then we had a debt default, today we are in virtual default,” Fernandez said in an interview with TV program La Cornice. We used to have high unemployment, and today we have the same,” Fernandez said, drawing a comparison with the 2001 crisis when Argentina defaulted on $100 billion. Argentina has an annual inflation of 55 percent, and a debt of almost 90 percent of its GDP.

Source: The Guardian December 23, 2019 08:48 UTC