He added that “missing a lot” but the Deputy Minister of Economy insisted on the fact that the Government is heading towards a primary fiscal surplus (that the State spends less than it collects) and a single dollar.
The advance of Gabriel Rubinstein It comes against a backdrop of more than 15 different types of dollars and in the midst of yet another version of the soy dollar (at $230) that the government is trying to bring foreign currency into reserves of the Central Bank.
Official dollar, wholesale, MEP, cash with settlement, tourist, savings, Qatar, crypto, card, for foreign tourists added to the two versions of the soy dollar (up from $200 when the official was at $140 and from $230 when it was at $168) are the main types of dollars quoted in Argentina.
This set of different types of currencies are, in turn, one of the fundamental pillars of the “hold on” plan, “we are seeing” or “slide of the arc” which characterizes its management Sergio Massa, with the aim of protecting the Central Bank’s reserves to cross the bridge of foreign exchange shortage until March-April, when the bumper harvest export dollars would start arriving.
August, even if it seems far away, in a document that approached Vice President Cristina Kirchner, Rubinstein has proposed a 50% writedown. to unify the foreign exchange market, establish a free float and facilitate collection with export withholdings.
According to Rubinstein (President Alberto Fernández also outlined the issue) the goal is the single dollar and it will be necessary to understand how this vision is compatible with that of Minister Sergio Massa, who announced in this week’s Techint PMI seminar that in 2023 the companies will be able to agree to import in the official dollar only 10% more than imported this year.
For experts, the path to single dollarbased on 15 or more current exchange rates would be understood only with a devaluation of the considerable weight it has had up to now persistently denied by Minister Massa.
How do you interpret a minister who denies a devaluation and his deputy talks about his single dollar goal?
In October 2015, about 60 days before taking office as Minister of Economy. Alfonso Prat Gay said the free $16 or blue dollar was “very expensive” to support the official $9 dollars of those days.
In his view at the time, the $16 dollar was excessive and helped inflate prices from the family basket. The gamble of the government that took office in December was to raise the stock markets and unify the foreign exchange market. On March 8, the dollar touched $16 and only then fell to $14 in an attempt to stabilize.
Think of a single dollar when wholesale is up 71% this year against inflation of 92.4% and with the prospect of less foreign exchange inflow next year due to the Drought which can affect the farming season is surprising. Market participants may assume that Rubinstein is sticking to his original idea that a 50% devaluation is needed.
For now, the idea of a single dollar seems far away and even less after the inflation data in November: a 4.9% increase in the cost of living that the Government will try to defend tooth and nail exchange delays and price agreements after the inflation target “start with 3” as Massa says in March 2023.
Meanwhile, and as the latest report from consulting firm Equilibra claims: “In December the Central Bank was expected to issue more than double the pesos agents wanted, mainly due to four factors: 1) the soybean dollar; 2 ) financing the fiscal deficit; 3) payment of interest on remunerated liabilities and 4) repurchase of sovereign peso bonds in the secondary market”.
During the week, the Treasury got more than the pesos needed to service its debt commitments, but traders continue to watch the concentration of maturities in the first quarter of next year. From Economy the message is that they will go forward “step by step” and without sudden reprogramming or devaluations.
Source: Clarin
