BUENOS AIRES - Argentine consumers and businesses complained on Wednesday that the government had not gone far enough in unfreezing bank accounts, while the IMF repeated an offer help to the recession-hit nation if it presents viable economic plans.

New rules introduced on Wednesday allowed depositors to exchange up to $5,000 in frozen dollar savings into devalued pesos, a softening of curbs introduced last month to stop a run on banks that threatened to collapse the financial system.

Savers, angry at the measures cutting the value of dollar savings by about a quarter, joined long lines at banks, shielded by metal shutters installed after weeks of street protests that have left the capital dotted with smashed store windows.

Some deposit holders banged pots and pans outside a few banks, demanding access to all their savings.

Argentina, Latin America's No. 3 economy, has been shaken by looting, protests and political chaos since bank withdrawal curbs were imposed, adding to massive problems of a nation hit by a four-year recession and a 20 percent unemployment rate.

There were also protests as far afield as the Andean mountain resort of of Bariloche, about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres) southwest of Buenos Aires, with television footage showing demonstrators burning tires in the streets and shop windows shattered, while vandals smashed bank machines in La Plata, south of Buenos Aires.

"This is not democracy. This is Communism. This is Cuba, not Argentina," said one protester in the capital.

Meanwhile, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Horst Koehler told Germany's Die Zeit newspaper in an interview to be published on Thursday the multilateral lender would provide "further financial help" to Argentina once the new government puts forth a convincing new economic program.

"We are giving the country time to work out an overall strategy. If the new program is convincing, we will provide further financial help," Koehler said. "But it is my clear intention that the fund should in principle be restrictive when it comes to financial support operations."

Analysts said the IMF wants the government to show it is willing to try to balance its budget through steep spending cuts, blaming overspending for Argentina's economic crisis.

The IMF has warned that the $15 billion aid figure which government officials have said it could seek was too high. IMF auditors are currently in Buenos Aires to review Argentina's progress in halting chronic budget overspending while an official IMF mission is due to arrive at the end of the month.

In a sign of the often tense relations between the government and IMF, Cabinet Chief Jorge Capitanich gave a blunt reply to Koehler's statement on Tuesday that "there is now way out without pain."

"We don't need anybody to tell us that we have to suffer," Capitanich said.

Argentina's Peronist President Eduardo Duhalde, the fifth president in over a month, huddled with his Cabinet to discuss the 2002 budget.

Government officials said the IMF was especially worried about the prospect of a new law that would allow bankrupt companies to stay afloat by forcing their banks to become shareholders and ease their debt burden. The bill, in Congress, is seen as threatening the financial system's stability.

The unpopular bank restrictions last month triggered the worst civil unrest Argentina has seen in a decade, when rioting and looting brought down former President Fernando de la Rua and left 27 dead.

On Wednesday, small groups of unemployed people blocked roads across the country to demand work and food aid.

While this week there have been simmering street protests, the capital appeared to be more of a ghost town as droves left for the beach for traditional summer holidays. Many have elected to spend them in Argentina rather than abroad, which has been made more costly by this month's devaluation.

Bowing to growing public pressure to free up savings, the government took out full-page newspaper advertisements explaining how savers can opt to switch up to $5,000 from their frozen accounts into pesos.

But savers can only swap the funds at the official fixed rate of 1.40 pesos per dollar, well below the 1.74/1.77 pesos per dollar buy-sell rate on the street on Wednesday afternoon.

"The most logical thing is to swap into pesos at 1.40 and then buy dollars at 1.80 because we don't know what is going to happen in the future," said office worker Leila Amarillo, said earlier in the day.

Savers withdrawing pesos from dollar accounts Wednesday would be able to buy dollars at exchange houses for about 75 percent of the nominal dollar value of their accounts.

For pesos, caps forbidding cash withdrawals of more than 1,500 pesos per month are still in place.

Many people, remembering former President Carlos Menem's decision in 1989 to freeze deposits and turn them into bonds overnight to stop a bank run, were ready to cut their losses.

"I'm going to turn my savings into pesos because I'm worried the government will eventually pay us in bonds," said one anxious depositor as he queued up outside a downtown bank.

The floating peso stabilized on Wednesday at 1.74/1.77 (buy-sell) pesos per dollar. But the Central Bank was forced to sell $30 million to prop up the currency, which has now depreciated 43.5 percent from its pre-devaluation rate.

A separate fixed-rate peso for foreign trade is pegged at 1.40 per dollar. The government has said it hopes to float the peso fully in the second half of the year. Analysts are forecasting the peso will depreciate to as low as 2.65 per dollar by year-end, according to a Reuters poll.

"These banking curbs are suffocating us. The paralysis continues, the lack of business. People don't know how to keep going," said Vicente Lourenzo, vice president of the Chamber of Merchants and Businessmen.

Congress started on Wednesday to debate a bill which would allow the Central Bank to print money -- an essential change for the bank after the peso was pegged to the U.S. dollar for a decade. The law will almost certainly be passed by the government-dominated legislature. (additional reporting by Gilbert Le Gras) Nampa-Reuters