Argentina's government will this week launch a line of credit worth $1.5 billion to help stimulate productive investments and combat inflation, leading daily Clarin reported on Sunday.
"This is aimed at addressing the root causes of price rises," Clarin quoted an unnamed government source as saying. The source said the influx of money was not expected to stoke inflation.
The loans would come due in up to 10 years and would offer interest rates of between 15.5 and 17.5 percent for peso loans and between 8.5 and 13.0 percent for dollar loans.
The state-owned Banco de la Nacion - which Argentina's Economy Minister Felisa Miceli headed before assuming her new post last week - will grant the loans. The Clarin report comes a day after Miceli and her entire team met for the first time.
Consumer prices surged 9.8 percent from January through October, threatening to surpass the government's target of 11 percent in 2005, and local media report that November inflation could reach 1.2 percent. Official figures are due on Monday.
Miceli said last week she would not try to tame inflation with measures such as interest rate hikes, but would instead encourage more production to meet rising demand as the economy roars into its third year of robust growth, after an unprecedented crisis in 2001-2002.
On Thursday, Miceli announced a price accord with Argentina's main supermarket chains to temporarily reduce prices for basic food products by 15 percent.
Inflation is a major concern for Argentina's center-left President Nestor Kirchner, who aims to protect the nearly 40 percent of Argentines living in poverty.