BUENOS AIRES, May 4: Argentina will keep a floating currency, Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna said on Friday, adding that the government has no plans to break off relations with the IMF or bring in controls to keep a check on inflation.

A system of exchange control would be artificial and would isolate us from the world, Lavagna told reporters a week after he was appointed to the economy portfolio by President Eduardo Duhalde.

And Lavagna said that the depreciation of the peso, with its dollar exchange rate Friday at 3.15 pesos, is not realistic, because it would give us a per capita GDP of $2,000 which is not the case for Argentina.

He pointed back to the $9,000 GDP under con January 3 after a decade in which had pegged the dollar and peso at a one to one rate.

The economy minister said the GDP should be around $5,000 to 5,500 per capita.

Argentina would be looking to negotiate the interim credit from the IMF in May or June, he said, to try to move things forward.

Meanwhile, ex-finance minister, Oscar Lamberto, put forward two theories on the IMF’s position, based on what he suggested was the Fund’s apparent change in position on Argentina in recent months.

Each time we manage to implement the conditions they insist on, they come in with fresh demands. They he chief negotiator on the Argentine side during the IMF mission here two weeks ago.

He charged that IMF Managing Director Horst Koehler, of German nationality, wants the government, on the other hand, to get rid of 500,000 Argentine public emr, does not favor a scenario of hyperinflation, the ex-minister told the weekly “Veintitres,” which published a section it titled The US plan to get its hands on Argentina.

Lavagna also said Friday that a 14-point agreement signed by provincial governors and the government, which includes a commitment to reducing the fiscal deficit, was now starting to come int added 1.5 million to the official count of impoverished Argentines since October, the International Monetary Fund has refused to bail Argentina out until bankruptcy and economic subversion laws are modified.

Those changes to bankruptcy law, re due to be debated in Congress next week.

Under the economic subversion law, executives can be jailed for up to six years for bad business decisions, soid.

Former economy minister Domingo Cavallo, who brought in a series of economic hardship packages so as to bring Argentina in line with IMF requirements, is currently under house arrest on economic subversion charges, and has complained that Awith the law.—AFP