Summary
16 April 2010
Argentina has offered to swap bonds that it failed to pay back nine years ago, at one third of their value. However, the offer may be a disappointment to some investors.
Reporter:
Linda Duffin
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Report
Argentina needs to access global markets because it faces tight financing and rising debt obligations this year. But Latin America's third-biggest economy has been a pariah since it defaulted on around 100 billion dollars worth of debt in 2001.
The Argentine government now wants to restructure 20 billion dollars in defaulted debt and nine billion dollars in accumulated interest.
The terms aren't as favourable as some investors had hoped and regulatory approval is still pending in Europe and Japan.
But the government hopes the offer will end investor lawsuits which led to the freezing of the country's assets in foreign banks and clear the way to return to the debt markets.
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Vocabulary
- access
be able to get into
- tight financing and rising debt obligations
not having much money to spend and owing a lot of money to other people or countries
- a pariah
someone (or here, a country) who is not accepted by a social group, especially because he, she or it isn't trusted
- defaulted
didn't repay the money it had borrowed
- restructure
(specialised financial term) come to an agreement about repaying a loan
- accumulated interest
the gradually increasing amount of money you have to repay in addition to the amount you borrowed
- favourable
good or advantageous
- pending
waiting for a decision to be made
- investor lawsuits
people, companies or countries which had made loans to Argentina, trying to get their money back by taking legal action
- freezing of the country's assets
officially and legally preventing Argentina's money or property from being used or moved
