Argentina fired the opening salvo in its efforts to renegotiate about US$66bn in bonds last week, proposing big coupon haircuts and a three-year grace period but admitting that it is still far from reaching a deal with creditors. How debt talks will play out in coming days remains a matter of speculation but discussions are expected to be heated amid what is likely to be creditor pushback on the proposal. "The reality is that we haven't reached an agreement between Argentina and bondholders over what is sustainable," Economy Minister Martin Guzman said on Thursday. What the "creditors are saying is that there has to be more fiscal adjustment and it has to continue quickly" but "this would destroy the future and opportunities of millions of people in Argentina", he said. Guzman saying that fiscal limits are implicitly included in the proposal suggest that this could be a "take-it-or-leave-it offer", wrote Ezequiel Zambaglione, a Buenos Aires based analyst at Balanz.
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