 Good evening from Geneva. Good afternoon in Buenos Aires. It's a great honor for the World Economic Forum. And my great pleasure to welcome President Alberto Fernandez to our devil's agenda week. Welcome, Mr. President. President Fernandez is a lawyer, but also a known academic with vast political experience. He took office as President of Argentina in 2019, having to face a critical first year in office with existing domestic economic challenges in the midst of an unprecedented global pandemic. After a reporting negative economic growth in 2018 and 2019, of course Argentina also faced contraction in its economy in 2019 and 2020 especially. However, I looked at IMF now. There is positive growth expected in 2021, this year, and not at least in 2022. So far these last months have been, of course, tougher Argentina and South America and the rest of the world. Argentina is the second largest economy in Latin America and with a lot of resources. And President Fernandez has also taken the initiative to reforms to create opportunities for renewed investments, job creation, and inclusive economic growth. The latter is also of great importance in the most unequal region of the world, Latin America. President Fernandez was also the first, as far as I know, head of state in Latin America to get vaccinated last Thursday, so he's a role model. And it is of great interest also for the World Economic Forum's global audience to learn about President Fernandez's vision and plans for Argentina. So good to see you, Mr. President. Muchas gracias. The floor is yours. Muchísimas gracias. Buenas tardes a todos. Thank you very much. And good afternoon to all of you. Thank you for the opportunity to address this highly impactful forum that invites us to reflection. And to action to build a different world. The pandemic we're going through is not a mere accident. It is a wake-up call to build a common home with new foundations. Either we wake up better or we succumb all the worse for wear. There is no other option for the day after this calamity. We live in a time that puts all paradigms to the test. I am certain that the moral imperative of the hour is to prioritize the most disadvantaged, the ones left behind, the ignored, the most vulnerable. Fraternity must be the new name of development and solidarity, the new name of social peace. These are values which are not exclusive to a single sector. They should engage governments and business. Those who work and those who own the capital. This is not theory. This is a conviction that has driven us in Argentina in these months in office. For instance, the work and production emergency assistance program provided support during the pandemic to 60% of the country's employers. At the same time, we launched a government guaranteed zero interest rate credit line for self-employed workers and we also granted subsidized loans to 110,000 SMEs accounting for a total 2% of GDP. The emergency family allowance preserved the living conditions of the most afflicted sectors while shoring up demand. Early on, we started negotiations with several laboratories to purchase vaccines to protect the Argentine people from the COVID-19 virus. The pandemic has shown once again that in order to address the major global challenges, we must engage in cooperation between the public and private sectors and that the vaccine must be considered a public global good. This public-private cooperation allowed the Argentine industry to take part in a production integration arrangement with Mexico to produce the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine for the whole region. This will help us boost a vaccination campaign that will first focus on those most at risk during the pandemic. The measures adopted have been crucial to initiate recovery which is proving to be faster than we had thought a few months ago. There is no trade-off between life and the economy. It's about a greater economy, a better economy. Our industrial sector is showing remarkable recovery. Last November, the economy had recovered 87% of the production loss to the pandemic. In industry, we now have 4,500 more jobs than before the pandemic. And we've had five consecutive months of recovery in terms of jobs in the industrial sector. Right in the middle of the pandemic, we did have to deal with another equally destructive virus, toxic and irresponsible debt levels. With a nationwide political and social agreement, we achieved a debt restructuring with private creditors with over 99.5% acceptance. This cleared the path to start building a future with production and work. Dialogue with the International Monetary Fund is well underway and has so far been highly constructive. We have received countless shows of support both from the international community and from the members of the G20. Renegotiation of the terms of the agreement with the IMF will bring new macroeconomic perspectives and a common understanding of the specific needs of the local economy. There is no more room for irresponsible austerity for unrealistic demands that undermine our own credibility as well as that of those who grant unrealistic support. The program to be agreed with the IMF will be sent to Argentina's Congress to bring on board all of the political spectrum as part of a development path with debt sustainability, social inclusion and transparency as state policies at its center, which is quite a historical event in our country. It is no time for conformism, but for transformation, for a transition to change. We observe the challenges emerging out of the current crisis and see them as a turning point to advance on the great reset which Professor Schwab advocates so much. In this new context, it is necessary to link multilateralism to a notion of multisolidarity, engaging governments, business and workers as well. Coordination and public-private consensus requires that we open up opportunities for dialogue and pluralistic work in Argentina, seeking to put in place the conditions to build a common vision for the country. This is why my administration has decided to promptly launch an Economic and Social Council for Development, which will broadly invite all stakeholders and actors from the country to chart predictable pathways for the medium and long term. Our commitment to investment production and work is absolute. The private sector is an essential partner to undertake the reforms that will enable Argentina to make productive and technological progress. This is just as essential as the workforce itself. Argentina intends to show that it is possible to harmonize economic policies that foster private sector investments with the protection of the most vulnerable sectors. Incentivizing investment in the real economy is a key step to foster and strengthen the growth and development process in the country. We know and understand that in order to invest, financing and predictability are needed. We are committed to pursuing the path towards sustainable recovery in line with the Paris Accord climate goals. We are certain that the development of the future will either be green or will just not take place. We want Argentina to be sustainable in a less polluted world. We are working to secure the necessary financing to speed up the transition towards an energy matrix that is sustainable, inclusive, dynamic, stable, federal and sovereign. We see this crisis as a unique opportunity to rethink the pathways to development and international cooperation arrangements. As president pro-temporary of the Mercosur bloc, I am also committed to encourage along with Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and our associated states an agenda to promote deeper and more innovative integration with the rest of Latin America, with Europe and with Asia as well. In Argentina, this is clear to us. We have become fully aware of the fact that at the end of the day, we are all just one. The ethics of solidarity is calling us. It is the time for political, social, ethical and environmental responsibility. We need to work along with the private sector to make the most of the opportunities of transition to develop efficient, non-polluting industries, levering the vast potential of Argentina in terms of clean energy generation throughout its territory with great opportunities in the field of solar energy in the North with the best winds in the world in Patagonia and also to develop such inputs like lithium and green hydrogen in all of their varieties to add value in our country. We believe the conditions exist for Argentina to be a leader in the field of electromobility with a strong legal framework that we are putting in place. Through industrial policy initiatives, we need to foster the development of production hubs centered around clean industries to emerge from this challenge both for the country and for humanity stronger. The way we see it, the knowledge economy is already a reality. It is a priority for Argentina to become integrated with global value chains through 4.0 technology. We have adopted a law with great consensus which is an effective government policy in this regard. In short, we are hopeful for the coming times. We are realistically idealistic and pragmatic in not forgetting values when making decisions. It is time to join forces to tackle endemic problems that our world has been plagued by for years. Unsustainable sovereign debt, extreme poverty, water access, gender parity, natural disasters, climate change and corruption as well. At the same time, we should pursue an agenda of state of the art topics reflective of the 21st century, the future of educational work, telemedicine, 4.0 productive chains, digital inclusion, finally the empowerment of women and of course green infrastructure. And I'm not talking about merely technocratic issues or things that you would see on an Excel spreadsheet. I'm talking about existential issues that require political science and economic science to go hand in hand driven by the passion to make this world a better place. The economy must recover the ethical sense it has lost. Our dear Pope Francis launched last year a universal appeal to rethink the way we pursue economic activity. He coordinated a world meeting in Assisi in Italy with Regina Bruni, the economist, who's just published a book called Unhappy Capitalism. And that title, Unhappy Capitalism, I think is a great definition of the kind of thing we should leave behind. Now the global solidarity pact is our goal. We need to leave behind opulent unhappiness. Societies that discard the weakest and worship while profit making and dehumanization in an amoral way. Neither the economy nor politics amear contracts, but rather a set of relations amongst human beings. Where pain, dreams, and expectations of others also matter when it comes to making decisions and dreaming up new horizons for the future with new eyes. It is now or never. We can choose to be mere onlookers in a world of slow growth and growing inequality, unconcerned with the environment and just carry on doing business as usual. Or we can choose to act courageously and to decide to be protagonists in the task of laying the new foundations for an innovative approach towards sustainable and inclusive development. This pandemic should lead to a better world. It is our own responsibility to make this happen. From Argentina, I invite us to be partners in this undertaking. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Mr. President, for this very thoughtful message. And thank you also for referencing the great reset that the World Economic Forum has launched. And as you may be know, Professor Schraub also has come out with a book about stakeholder capitalism. And very much arguing that the legitimacy of today's economic system also is at stake if wealth doesn't trickle down. And all businesses also have a responsibility not only to their shareholders, but also to society at large. Looking at Argentina and applying this solidarity approach but at the same time reviving economic growth but with more jobs, more inclusiveness and also sustainability. Do you think you can keep a high growth and combine all these things? Do you have a game plan for that? I guess, Mr. President. We must certainly have a program for all these things but we can't conceive of growth while keeping our fellow citizens in the well of poverty. What we need to do is build a form of capitalism in which investments can grow and of course profits for shareholders but in a way that does not create such blatant social imbalances like the ones we've seen in recent years. In your introduction, you mentioned that I'm in the most unequal continent in the world, Latin America. Ironically, it is a very wealthy continent. How can you understand so much wealth and so much inequality? How can you understand so much income distribution and so much poverty distributed around the world? I'm sure that is the challenge we need to tackle. And these are not mutually exclusive things. The economy connotes ethics just as capitalism and ethics can't mean that the benefits for just a few lead to poverty for the very many. Ethics is about growing and developing in a society that grows and develops and that gives the most disadvantage the conditions to advance. I think therein lies the true secret and I think that is the true challenge at hand. You see this idea that capitalism can only flourish by betting on investors and shareholders of companies and large corporations while leaving behind humanity has left us precisely with this kind of world. And this is also a model, the weakness of which has been made evident because one day a tiny little virus imperceptible to the naked eye came along and it was able to demolish economic structures and lay there the enormous inequality we live in. What we see is happening with the vaccines goes to show exactly what I'm talking about. And these days of a pandemic continuing to see economic embargoes that only affect the parts of the world that are subject to embargoes are things that require that we take a new look at things. So this is why I think this is an opportunity for us to talk about these things. It is also a good idea to rethink capitalism which in recent years paid a lot more attention to financial derivatives and speculation than to production. And the best form of capitalism was the one that thought more about producing and also investing, creating jobs and fostering equality. Thank you so much. I recently wrote a poll in foreign affairs about the Nordic model, the Nordic countries. They have high economic growth but also some of the lowest inequalities in the world. So an open economy. So I think what you're seeing and what you're saying, Mr. President, it is totally possible to combine economic growth but also with less inequalities. Maybe what you're saying is over time those countries will be more sustainable and with more inclusiveness, you also over time will see a rebuild of the human capital that make that country even more competitive. So I guess we agree on that. The sound had just got out. The Nordic or Scandinavian countries, if we think about Finland, Norway, Sweden and look at the way they have been able to pursue capitalism while guaranteeing greater quality. That is a good example. And these are societies that invested in public health and education for all of their populations. And they have developed intelligently and shortly by reaching truly enviable levels of technological development. Capitalism can be that or it can be something else. I don't want to offer unpleasant examples, but unfortunately we have become weary of seeing so many examples of wealth being concentrated in just a few and poverty being distributed among the millions with access to education and health being so difficult for many citizens and people in this one. I think that's what we need to change and that's what we need to discuss because as you rightly point out, it's not that capitalism doesn't have the ways to achieve those goals. Of course, there are ways. The thing is that sometimes human greed makes people act differently. And in order for that not to happen, the state government presence becomes a central element to prevent that kind of abuse and deviations and to guarantee access to such essential goods as health and education. The state must be present. No doubt about it. But you gave a very clear example. What I'm talking about is not utopia. It is feasible. It can be done. It's about changing the mindset, the rationale that unfortunately underlies most of the developed world. Thank you. We know also, Mr. President, in your introduction that you have constructive dialogue with IMF and with the new managing director, Kristalina Georgieva. Maybe you could share the latest there. I think I saw in the press, at least, you had a call with her quite recently. And how do you balance the constraints on your country and the fiscal constraints with also your vision, of course, to invest in upgrading infrastructure, education, and addressing digital divide? It's kind of squaring a circle. No, not necessarily. Well, it's not necessarily about squaring the circle. We have very interesting dialogue with the IMF generally. And I, myself, in particular, with Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director, I have a feeling that she and I have a common view of what is happening to the world. Obviously, we are not exactly standing on the same side of the counter, so to speak. And in this particular case, she has to fulfill a duty, which is sometimes a thankless task, but she does this very effectively. And she's really very good at understanding what's happened to Argentina. The first thing to understand is that Argentina has had truly unimaginable debt levels, because since December 2015, and Argentina, by the way, in terms of debt to GDP, had had until 2015 one of the lowest levels. There was hardly any such kind of debt levels. But suddenly, in the last two years of the administration that preceded me, debt levels skyrocketed in a terrifying way. And all of this with the approval of the IMF that tried to bail out the country, but only ended up leading to a massive capital fight in the financial system, which, of course, makes the government of Argentina responsible since it was the one that took on debt. But there was also a considerable degree of responsibility on the part of those who granted the loans. And it wasn't Cristalina Aguilgeva who was at the helm at the time. So now what we need to do with the IMF and with Cristalina Aguilgeva specifically is to find a solution a way out that will no longer leave Argentina relegated. Argentina was caught up in a web of debt that was fully unproductive. It didn't help the country grow. It was the kind of indebtedness that only opened the way to capital flight. And the IMF does have its share of responsibility and the board as well since they supported the loan at the time. But I understand the perspective and they need to collect their debt from us. And of course, the work has changed in between and in a bit of all this, we've had to deal with the pandemic. So what we need now is time, time to be able to get back on our feet, to produce again, to export again, and to be able to save dollars once again and to be able to honor our commitments. The truth is that I am a firm believer in the fact that indebtedness causes great damage to economies. And so the sooner we get our debt burden in order, the better it will be. And I also believe that we need to make our part of the effort in showing discipline to gradually reduce our fiscal deficit and to build up our reserves and to be able to get out of this constant anxiety caused by the dollar exchange rate fluctuations in the country. And so that we can build a more stable country with a calmer and more stable economy. That is the goal we pursue. And I think that Kristalina Gogeva understands this and she believes in us and she rightly does so. Let me tell you one thing. In the last 130 years of Argentina's history, during only five consecutive years Argentina had fiscal and trade surplus. And that was the case only during five consecutive years in all of the 130 last years of Argentina's history. And those five years happened to be the years during which I was chief of cabinet in Argentina. The president at the time was Nestor Kirchner. We pursued very strict fiscal discipline in those days and we also kept an eye on our domestic prices as well. And we were the ones that paid 100% of the debt to the IMF and to the multilateral lending institutions and we were the ones who got Argentina out of default and history seems to repeat itself with me now as president no longer chief of cabinet. But I tell you this so that everyone can understand what my conviction is. We are not here because I want to be here. We are here because this is what happened to us. We didn't actually create the crisis. We inherited it. And mind you, we don't complain about having to deal with a crisis because when we went into the election campaign we were aware of the extent of the crisis. But I think that the pandemic requires that we all review our methodologies and to better understand that poverty is not only about statistics. It's about the suffering of millions of people and amongst all of us we must work to contain the damage to humanity. And believe me, I do feel really understood in my discussions with Kristalina Georgievna in this regard. Thank you so much, Mr. President, for sharing your vision for Argentina. Also so strongly underlining the importance of economic growth but that it has to be inclusive, create jobs and also be sustainable. So, muchas gracias. This is very interesting, Mr. President. Thank you.