While an IMF delegation is already in the country to move forward with the review of the agreement with Argentina, Federico Sturzenegger met with Kristalina Georgieva in Saudi Arabia.
The officials met within the framework of a forum of the international organization whose focus is on the deregulation policies and reforms necessary to boost the growth of the countries.The minister had been recommended by President Javier Milei to attend the meeting.
The meeting took place in AlUla, in Saudi Arabia and was reflected in public messages from both officials.“Excellent exchange with Federico Sturzenegger on the 2026 agenda of our Advisory Council on Entrepreneurship and Growth and how we can put into practice the knowledge acquired in the Council’s debates before the broader members of the IMF,” wrote Georgieva in her X account.
Sturzenegger, for his part, highlighted the progress of the Argentine Government in matters of deregulation.”Today I met in AlUla with Kristalina Georgieva to work on the 2026 agenda of the Advisory Committee on Economic Growth. The progress in deregulation of Javier Milei’s government is an example for other countries,” she posted, and closed the message with the libertarian slogan “VLLC.”
Sturzenegger came to the IMF Advisory Council on the direct recommendation of President Javier Milei, who in various public interventions explained how this link with the head of the organization was created.According to the president, the rapprochement began during an informal conversation within the framework of a G7 meeting, which he attended at the invitation of the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni.
In that exchange, Milei presented his vision on economic growth, productivity and artificial intelligence, and questioned what he defined as excessive regulations in economies with increasing returns.According to the President, that conversation later led to empirical work by the IMF that validated the hypothesis that a lower regulatory burden is associated with higher growth rates.
That process, Milei stated, was what led Georgieva to propose the incorporation of Sturzenegger to the Fund’s Advisory Council, as a reference for a government aimed at releasing restrictions and promoting economic growth. In fact, according to the data that the Ministry of Deregulation displays on its website, from December 2023 to January 2026, 2,412 regulations were modified or eliminated, while they were removed or deregulatedsome 14,392 articles from different thematic areas.
The meeting in AlUla took place within the framework of the AlUla Conference for EmergingMarket Economies, an annual forum launched in 2025 that brings together finance ministers, central bank presidents and senior officials from emerging economies and developed countries.The event seeks to discuss strategies to confront global uncertainty, strengthen macroeconomic stability and promote sustainable growth.
The 2026 edition of the forum addressed topics such as the reconfiguration of global trade, the impact of uncertainty on financial systems, monetary policy in contexts of structural transformation, fiscal policy in economies exposed to shocks and growth led by the private sector, with a strong focus on technology and artificial intelligence.
The meeting occurred simultaneously with the arrival in Argentina of a technical mission from the IMF headed by Luis Cubeddu and Bikas Joshi. The executives arrived in the country in order to carry out the second review of the program agreed with the Government.
The central objective of this instance is to evaluate compliance with the meta-economic goals, especially the accumulation of international reserves, one of the commitments that – according to official sources – fell behind towards the end of 2025, but which improved at the start of 2026.
From%20done,%20to%20the%20date,%20the%20Bank%20Central%20complete%C3%B3%2025%20wheels%20consecutive%20withbalance%20positive%20in%20the%20purchase%20of%20currencies,%20both%20in%20the%20market%20exchange%20and%20through%C3%A9s%20of%20operations%20in%20block.%20In%20what%20that%20va%20of%202026,%20the%20entity%20sum%C3%B3%20m%C3%A1s%20ofUSD%201,400%20million,%20figure%20that%20represents%20approximately%20the%2014%%20of%20the%20annual%20goal%20established%20for%20the%20accumulation%C3%B3n%20of%20reserves.
During the next few days, the delegation will hold meetings with local authorities to analyze the progress of the program and define whether the pending disbursement of USD 1,000 million, associated with this review stage, is enabled.
