Economy Minister Caputo Says China Currency Line Could Cover 2027 Financing if Refinancing Fails

Economy Minister Luis Caputo said Argentina could use its currency swap with China to cover its 2027 financing if it cannot refinance its dollar bonds issued under local law, known as Bonares.

Investors raised the question at a JPMorgan event on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok. They asked about the 2027 financing program “in the eventual case that the Bonares refinancing isn’t possible,” Caputo said in an interview on Wednesday. “We told them that in that case we could use the China swap.”

The central bank renewed its US$19 billion swap with China’s central bank in August for five years, including a US$5 billion portion already activated, the same amount the government had planned to raise in Bonares in 2027 as part of a US$25 billion financing program announced in July. Caputo paused Bonar issuance in mid-August amid high US Treasury yields. The Bonares had stood in for international bond markets, which Milei’s government has avoided.

He said the separate US$20 billion swap with the United States also remains an option next year to calm markets before the election, though he did not name it as a way to fill the Bonares gap.

Caputo also met World Bank President Ajay Banga on Wednesday. He wrote that they advanced new Bank-financed projects, discussed expanding the funds available to Argentina and that the government is working to make US$10 billion of private investment viable. World Bank sources told La Nación the figure is not a loan: it is what the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Bank’s private-sector arm, would handle in investments over the coming months, counting its own money and capital it brings in from others. The Bank will also give technical assistance to monitor projects under RIGI, the incentive regime for large investments.

On Tuesday he met IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva, in talks on the waiver and the US$869 million tied to the Fund’s third loan review.

Caputo is due to attend a G20 finance ministers meeting this week. The annual meetings run through October 18.