Argentina faces up to a crisis

Argentina: Cristina fumbles a critical crisis

Argentina has done well out of the commodity boom but bankers and the man in the Buenos Aires coffee shop are frustrated by the government’s failure to sustain a thriving economy. Chloe Hayward reports.

THE EDITORIAL IN Aerolineas Argentinas’ in-flight magazine reads: "Toda crisis es una oportunidad." Aerolineas is a company in the middle of a crisis. Sadly, the opportunities are not that apparent.

The day Euromoney attempted to travel with the airline only a handful of flights took off, and all of these were several hours delayed. Two days earlier, on July 25, the Argentine carrier, which has debts of more than $890 million, had been renationalized. Far from describing the change in ownership as an opportunity for the Argentine government, one banker declares the venture to be a void into which the government was throwing money. "Renationalizing Aerolineas Argentinas was a major...