IMF backs Milei's reforms, says risks to Argentina's $44 bln loan program remain

NEW YORK/LONDON, Feb 1 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund said Argentina is committed to accumulating international reserves and stemming a central bank financing of government debt under the latest review of its $44 billion loan program, as the global lender backed a set of reforms proposed by President Javier Milei's new administration.

The IMF called Milei's stabilization plan for Argentina's embattled economy "bold" and "far more ambitious" than those put forth by his predecessors in the South American country, citing the reform mandate of his landslide election victory late last year as a positive given the challenges of its implementation.

"The authorities' strong ownership and electoral mandate to eliminate fiscal deficits and long-standing impediments to growth (many benefiting vested interests) mitigate implementation risks," the IMF said in a staff report on Argentina published on Thursday.

Yet the IMF acknowledged that risks to the program's success are high, given the "very difficult inheritance" from failed policies and a "complex political and social backdrop, with a fragmented Congress, falling real wages, and high poverty."

The fund said Argentina also committed "in the near term" to eliminate "distortive exchange restrictions and multiple currency practices" and to ban central bank credit to the government.

Separately on Thursday, the fund's Managing...
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