Milei has "excellent" first six months in office, says spokesman

BUENOS AIRES, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Argentine President Javier Milei has had an "excellent" first six months in office, presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni said on Monday.

"Today marks six months since the president took office, so I am going to recall the state in which we found the country on Dec. 10," he said at a press conference at Government House in the capital Buenos Aires.

He listed high inflation, a "central bank with almost 12 billion dollars in negative reserves and an uncontrolled fiscal deficit," as the main problems that plagued the economy when Milei came to power.

Milei's "orthodox economic stabilization program" turned the situation around, he said, leading the central bank to purchase 17 billion U.S. dollars and, "for the first time in 16 years, to seeing twin surpluses again," or positive balances in both fiscal accounts and in foreign trade.

In six months, Milei's administration "passed the chainsaw through every corner of government," allowing inflation to be reduced gradully, according to Adorni.

The president has done all this without the backing of the legislative branch, which "has not approved any law and even so the results have been excellent and absolutely extraordinary," said Adorni.

Milei and his work team did what they could "with the tools they have," and addressing the structural reforms that require the approval of Congress is still pending, such as labor modernization, he said.

The South American country registered an inflation rate of 289.4 percent in April year on year and a month-over-month rate of 8.8 percent in April, the first single-digit monthly figure since October, the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses reported on May 14.

Meanwhile, economic activity fell 8.4 percent year on year in March and shrank 5.3 percent in the first quarter, according to recent data from the institute.

Milei's belt-tightening measures have sparked demonstrations and strikes by labor unions and opposition groups against the deep spending cuts, especially to welfare programs. ■