Argentina seeks IMF loan to rescue peso from downward slide

President Macri says it would help country 'avoid a crisis like the ones we have faced before'

Argentina has appealed to the International Monetary Fund for an emergency credit package in an effort to avoid a financial crash and rescue its faltering peso currency from a long downward slide against the dollar.

The announcement, against a backdrop of surging interest rates and stubbornly resistant inflation, brought back echoes of Argentina's monetary crash and foreign debt default in December 2001 when the peso dropped overnight to a quarter of its value against the dollar and bank accounts were frozen nationwide.

Related: Argentina pushes interest rates to 40% to defend the peso