The Central bank (BCRA) confirmed the “special activation” of the exchange of coins with China in the amount of 35,000 million yuan (approx 5 billion dollars) to “clear foreign exchange market transactions”.
This was announced in a statement by the BCRA after the meeting between the head of this institution, Miguel Ángel Pesce, and the governor of the People’s Bank of China (BPC, central), Yi Gang, as part of the bimonthly meeting of the bank exchanges of governors organized by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in the Swiss city of Basel.
“Following the meeting, they confirmed that the currency ‘exchange’ agreement in effect between the two institutions has been activated, and promised to deepen the use of RMB (yuan) in the Argentine market for bilateral exchange,” the BCRA said. in the release meeting.
The “swap” or exchange of currencies between Argentina and China, a tool used by many central banks that allows countries to increase their reserves without cost, provides for the exchange of currencies for 130,000 million yuan (about 19,000 million dollars) and a special activation for 35,000 million ($5,000 million), said the text.
The expansion of the capacity to use this “exchange” was agreed on November 15 after the meeting held between the Argentine president, Alberto Fernández, and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, during the G20 summit on the Indonesian island of Bali.
The signing of this agreement was one of the top priorities of the government, due to the low volume of international reserves in the country.
Economy Minister Sergio Massa, in an interview with the newspaper Perfil, had defined the gesture of releasing the swap for 5,000 million as “very precious” in reference to the increase in the amount agreed with China and announced last November.
With agency data
Source: Clarin
