BUENOS AIRES, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- Argentina's President Alberto Fernandez said Thursday he was confident of resolving the substantial debt burden the South American country has with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), after the agency granted the previous government a more than 44 billion U.S. dollar bailout.

"We are working with the IMF at this time, with a technical group that has arrived, and I am very confident that we will find a solution," Fernandez said during a videoconference with representatives of the Association of American Chambers of Commerce in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to state news agency Telam.

An IMF mission arrived in Buenos Aires on Tuesday to negotiate a payment schedule on the debt.

The Argentine president said that when he took office in December, Argentina's economy "was in intensive care and then it caught the coronavirus," further deepening the crisis.

According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Argentina's economy could shrink this year by up to 10.5 percent due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

According to Fernandez, his administration has "information to be optimistic."

"For the first time in a long time, the tax collection rate was higher than inflation. We are beginning to turn the corner and recover productivity levels similar to those we had before the pandemic," he said. Enditem

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