President Mauricio Macri sealed a fiscal agreement with governors of nearly all Argentine provinces on Thursday in a sign of his growing clout in upcoming negotiations to close the budget deficit and open up the economy.
Governors of 23 out of Argentina’s 24 provinces agreed to drop legal claims estimated at 740 billion pesos ($42 billion) over their share of federal taxes in exchange for the proceeds of a 10-year, 80 billion peso ($4.6 billion) bond issued by the federal government. They also agreed to reduce local turnover taxes by 1.5 percent of gross domestic product over the next five years while limiting spending and supporting a reform of the pension system.
