CFK to attend G20 summit in Mexico

President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is due to arrive tonight in Los Cabos, an exclusive tourist destination in Western Mexico to attend tomorrow and Tuesday la VII Summit of the G20 group of nations amid international unease about her decisions to clamp trade barriers and expropriate control of the energy company YPF from Spain’s Repsol.

The President and her delegation are scheduled to arrive at 8pm local time (11pm in Argentina) to the Fiesta Americana hotel, a resort facing the Sea of Cortés, 11 kilometres from the convention centre where the debates will be held, official sources reported.

Her agenda, which is yet to be fine-tuned, includes bilateral meetings with her French and Russian colleagues François Hollande and Vladimir Putin respectively and may also include another one with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti.

Apart from those meetings, Fernández de Kirchner will coincide with leaders from countries with which Argentina has just had frictions, such as British Prime Minister David Cameron over the British-controlled Malvinas islands, that the British call Falklands and over which both countries went to war in 1982. Also attending will be US President Barack Obama, whose administration eliminated Argentina from its preferential imports system, and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who publicly blasted the Kirchnerite administration for the expropriation of the major energy company YPF.

Although Spain is not a G20 member and only attends as a permanent guest through the European Union (EU), a bloc of nations which does belong to the G20, it is epxected to voice its unease about YPF. Sources said Spain expected a harsher condemnation of YPF’s seizure by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Argentina’s trade restrictions and protective measures have also sparked conflicts with other G20 members such as Brazil and Mexico. In this sense, politicians in some countries suggested Argentina should be removed from the group altogether, but analysts believe this is unlikely.

Calderón: G20 could contribute US$430 billion to IMF

Mexican President Felipe Calderón said yesterday he thinks it is possible that the G20 members’ contributions to the IMF will exceed 430 billion dollars.

“I estimate that it could be a bigger capitalization” than was agreed in April, Calderón told reporters.

In April, the IMF said it had secured at least US$430 billion to increase its firepower, but many countries such as Brazil, China, Russia and Mexico itself have not yet said what specific amount they will contribute.

Herald with DyN, Reuters