Thursday November 28, 1985,
The Charlotte Observer,
CASH-STARVED ARGENTINE PROVINCES TURNING OUT THEIR OWN MONEY
By Andres Oppenheimer, Knight-Ridder News.
     MIAMI -- Two remote Argentine provinces, short of cash to pay
public employees, have come up with an easy solution.
     They're printing up their own money, to the chagrin of the
national and international banking authorities.
     "We are paying all our public employees with provincial bonds,"
Roberto Romero, governor of the northern Argentina province of Salta,
said in a telephone interview. He said Salta started printing its own
IOUs because it wasn't getting sufficient federal currency fast
enough.
     "People can change these bonds for money at any bank," Romero
said. "They can use them to shop at supermarkets and to buy cars or
any other products."
     The Argentine government is not smiling, and world bankers are
worried that other cash-starved states will copy Salta's financial
extravaganza and jeopardize Latin efforts to curb inflation and pay
huge foreign debts.
     The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the world's main financial
inspector for debt-ridden countries, was concerned enough to bring up
the issue in recent talks with the Argentine government, said sources
in Argentina and Washington. The IMF does not comment on negotiations
with individual countries.
     After Salta started quietly issuing its own IOUs in September
last year, the nearby province of La Rioja started printing its own
bonds too. Four other Argentine provinces have either begun adopting
similar programs or are preparing to do so.
     In all cases, the bonds are good only within the province where
they're issued.
     But the government of President Raul Alfonsin says the provincial
bonds are expanding the country's money supply and are undermining
efforts to remove Argentina from the list of world inflation leaders.
Earlier this year, Argentina had a 1,000% annual inflation rate.
     Alfonsin made headlines worldwide in June when he launched an
austerity program built around a commitment to stop his government
from printing money. Since then, inflation has dropped to 3% a month,
a record low in recent history.
     The bonds printed in Salta come in denominations of 10, 100, and
1,000 australes, the same as ordinary Argentine currency bills. They
pay no interest and can be either exchanged for Argentine currency or
used to buy goods.
     Romero, of the opposition Peronist Party, and officials of other
provinces claim their bonds are not really new currencies because they
are no good outside their provinces.

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