Argentine President Javier Milei told the Llao Llao business forum that his administration had carried out the largest fiscal adjustment in history during his speech on Friday.

“The 15% of the GDP that the state used to take in fiscal deficit for its parasitic activities is returning to the private sector for productive investment,” he said during a speech lasting just over an hour. He stated that Argentina had neither the time nor the financing for a more gradualist approach to austerity.

He said the government would only “generate the conditions necessary for Argentina to grow again” and told the audience to do the rest. 

“I don’t believe in a managed economy,” he added.

The Llao Llao forum is a closed event convening the country’s most powerful business leaders in the luxurious Llao Llao Hotel in Bariloche. It has taken place since 2012. This year’s guestlist included Eduardo Elsztain, the country’s largest real estate developer; Marcos Galperín, CEO of the fintech Mercado Libre; and Cristiano Rattazi, the former CEO of the Argentine branch of Italian auto company Fiat.

“When you go from a hyper-socialist economy to a market economy you may have additional problems inherent to this transition,” Milei said of the Argentine economy’s current difficulties. The president also said he would not devalue the peso again, questioning why the government would “meddle” with the exchange rate.

He claimed his administration’s flagship pieces of legislation, the mega-decree and the omnibus bill, had only one flaw: that they “go against the politicians’ grafts.” The government is now seeking to pass an abridged version of the omnibus bill. On Wednesday, senior Milei administration officials filed a fiscal package that includes a tax amnesty and a lower income tax threshold. Discussion of the bill in the congressional budget and treasury commision began on Thursday.

The president also spoke about the countries he sees as role models for his administration. “I’m not going to settle for being like Germany, I want to be like Ireland,” he said. “I want a profound liberal revolution.”