THE ARGENTINIAN embassy in Kingston is slated to be closed shortly as that country tries to tighten expenditure in the wake of a financial crisis.
Gonzalo Fernandez Medrano, Argentinean ambassador to Jamaica, said his office, located on Knutsford Boulevard in New Kingston, is one of eight embassies worldwide that will be closed because of the financial problems.
Senor Medrano, one of three diplomats at the embassy, said the decision was made by his homeland government during the first week of May. He said his government hoped to reopen the embassy as soon as the South American nation's fiscal woes are fixed.
"In the meantime, the interests of Argentina in Jamaica will be attended to by an ambassador in another country -- I don't know where," Fernandez Medrano said.
The date for the closure of the office has not been set, Fernandez Medrano said.
Mounting financial problems including massive inflation, high unemployment and escalating debt in Argentina came to a head late last year and led to multiple presidential resignations and deadly anti-government protests.
Jamaica and the South American country have hared many years of bilateral co-operation starting on March 25, 1963, when Argentina became the first Latin American country to establish diplomatic relations with Kingston. In 1994, Prime Minister P.J. Patterson and Argentine foreign minister Guido Di Tella signed a Bilateral Investment Treaty and Tourism Co-operation, and earlier, in November 1992, Patterson and Di Tella signed a Bilateral Agreement for Scientific Economic and Technical Co-operation during a visit by Patterson to Argentina.
Both countries are members of the G-15 group of developing nations, as well as the Andean Promotion Corporation, an organisation to promote sustainable development in Central American, South American and Caribbean countries.
