Milei administration introduces 20,000-peso bill to Argentina

Argentina's government has introduced the highest denomination banknote of the Javier Milei era to date, the 20,000-peso bill. 

The new design was introduced into circulation on Wednesday, the Central Bank announced in a communiqué.

The launch comes barely six months after 10,000-peso banknotes emerged in response to an annual inflation which is slowing but remains at 193 percent per annum.

The Central Bank pointed out that "a higher denomination of banknote permits a smaller number to printed to face a constant level of demand for cash on the part of society. Less banknotes in the economy reduce the costs of replenishing the ATMS and processing time in the branches."

The battle against inflation is one of the pillars of President Javier Milei’s government. October inflation was reduced to 2.7 percent after marking 25.5 percent last December when the La Libertad Avanza leader took office, driven by a devaluation of 52 percent.

The other side of the coin to Milei’s austerity and public spending cuts is a severe economic recession with plunging consumption and manufacturing production while poverty has risen 11 percentage points in just six months to hit 52.9 percent of the population.

A dinner in an average restaurant costs around 20,000 pesos and can now be paid with this banknote bearing the image of liberal politician and writer Juan Bautista Alberdi (1810-1884), one of the ideologues of the 1853 Constitution and a habitual historic reference point in Milei’s speeches. 

The issue of new banknotes with a higher denomination is an old story in Argentina – in the last 140 years the name of the national currency has changed five times with million-peso banknotes issued in the later years of the 1976-1983 military dictatorship in a context of hyperinflation.

– TIMES/AFP