Argentina repays $5.9 billion in debt

Argentina repaid $5.9 billion of its debt Monday in keeping with its repayment schedule, though a longstanding dispute with US hedge funds remains.

"The payment has been made on time. We have met our commitment with one of the largest repayments in about two decades," said central bank chief Alejandro Vanoli.

The payment was made by drawing on the country's foreign exchange reserves, which showed a balance of $27.7 billion Monday.

Since its economic collapse in 2001, Argentina, the third-largest Latin American economy, has renegotiated its debt with 93 percent of its creditors, but a handful of US-based hedge funds have held out for full repayment and refused debt restructuring.

A US court decision requires Argentina to repay those creditors in full, which Buenos Aires has called extortion, likening the holdout hedge funds to vultures.