Argentina has decided to allocate its reserves to repay nearly 10 billion U.S. dollars of debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Argentine President Netstor Kirchner said on Thursday.

"We have made the institutional decisions that allow us to allocate our reserves to the repayment of our total debt with the IMF," Kirchner said.

The measure, which is similar to the one Brazil announced on Tuesday, is aimed at clearing Argentina's obligations to the multilateral organization.

The deal will be completed by the end of this year, two years ahead of schedule, saving Argentina 1 billion dollars in interest, Kirchner said.

Argentina is the third largest debtor of the IMF, following Brazil and Turkey.

However, it started to emerge from the debt problems slowly. Besides, the country managed to renegotiate more than 100 billion dollars in private debt with over 70 percent of creditors in June.

Source: Xinhua