Brazilian real
Argentina fell into a deep recession in the second half of 1998, triggered and then compounded by a series of adverse external shocks, which included low prices for agricultural commodities, the appreciation of the US dollar, to which the peso was pegged at par, the 1998 Russian financial crisis, the LTCM crisis and the devaluation of the Brazilian real in January 1999. Argentina did not enjoy a rapid recovery, and the sluggishness of GDP growth fuelled concerns about the sustainability of public debt.