So far in February, the Central Bank has got rid of 903 million dollars and already has a net sales balance for five consecutive weeks.
In the last wheel of the week he had to sell 49 million dollars. That’s how they left $470 million on five wheels. This production was boosted by a US$260 million payment last Wednesday as an advance on LNG imports.
With this result, according to data from the consulting firm FMyA, international reserves have decreased 46 million dollars and closed with a gross stock of 39,512 million dollars, while net reserves fell to $3.850 million, the lowest level since September of last year.
In this context, the Government finds it difficult to respect the agreement with the Monetary Fund. FMyA highlights this “The reserve goal of $7.7 billion by the end of March is getting more complicated.”
Until now, only the idea of a credit with an international bank -REPO- for US$ 1,000 million could transcend to bring the reserves from the current level to the level agreed with the international organization, even if the operation is not fully defined. for M&A. “Other alternatives on the table are the soy dollar, disbursements from international organizations and more stocks.”
For its part, Ecolatina points out that after closing January with revenues of $192 million and accumulating a negative balance of $918 million in February, “BCRA’s net foreign exchange sales have so far reached $1,110 million in this 2023, showing worst start to year (top 35 shapes) since records were held (2003).”
Behind this bad performance is the low agricultural clearance: so far in the February averageto a daily sale of US$ 33 million, just a quarter of what was liquidated in the same month of 2022 (132 million dollars).
“This dynamic is not only explained by seasonal factors (February is usually the month when liquidation reaches its minimum during the year), but also influences the negative impact of drought on the grain harvestthe advance of soybean sales in December and the sector’s incentive to keep waiting for a new edition of the soybean dollar”, specifies Ecolatina.
The consultant’s estimate is thatThe central bank is expected to buy nearly $3 trillion through March 31 to achieve the target agreed with the IMF.
“Given the current dynamics, we are maintaining it not only are the possibilities of implementing an upcoming ‘soybean dollar 3.0’ along with other complementary measures (REPO) growingbut we also think it likely that the Government will try to make the reserve target more flexible on the basis of the ‘cost of war’ argument in 2022 and/or the difficulties posed by the impact of drought and the slowdown in global growth” , slide Ecolatin.
AQ
Source: Clarin
