(16 Dec 2005) SHOTLIST
1. Wide of Presidential Palace
2. Wide of media conference
3. Set up shot of Argentinan President Nestor Kirchner
4. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Nestor Kirchner, Argentinan President
"Today we have taken the institutional decisions which allow us provide our reserves to the full pay of the debt with the International Monetary Fund."
5. Cutaway of people applauding
6. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Nestor Kirchner, Argentinan President
"In the last thirty years, we have seen advance the ongoing dependency of programmes that Argentine agreed with the IMF. We shared the sad fate of joining the group of countries where that institution has applied and control with one hundred fifty programmes of adjustments. The result has been: exclusion, poverty, misery, the destruction of the production, underneath the shadow of these programmes which benefit a minority and prevent the possibility of combine macro economic growth with social development and employment"
7. Mid of cameramen
8. Wide of room
STORYLINE
Argentina will repay its 10 billion US dollar debt to the International Monetary Fund by the end of the year, President Nestor Kirchner announced on Thursday.
"We have made the institutional decisions that allow us to allocate our reserves to the repayment of our total debt" with the IMF, Kirchner told an audience of invited guests and media.
Argentina was scheduled to make payments to the IMF through 2008.
Early repayment, by tapping into the country's US$27 billion (euro23.5 billion) in foreign reserves, will save it US$1 billion (euro830 million) in interest.
Kirchner said that debts to the IMF had resulted in exclusion, poverty and misery and had hindered economic growth and repressed living standards.
Thursday's announcement came two days after Brazil said it would pay back its 15 billion US dollar IMF debt before the end of December, two years ahead of schedule - saving the country about 900 million US dollars in interest.
In a speech announcing the move, Kirchner thanked Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela for what he called support to his government's decision. Venezuela has purchased 950 millions US dollars in Argentine bonds.
The Kirchner administration had been for months seeking to end its debt with the IMF in order to avoid conditions imposed by the international lender, such as maintaining certain fiscal surplus and authorising increase in the rates of public utilities.
The announcement marked the Kirchner administration's second achievement this year in paying down the country's debt.
In June, Argentina renegotiated 100 billion US dollar in private debt with more than 70 percent of its creditors.
Argentina is the IMF's third largest debtor after Brazil and Turkey.
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