The fragility of reserves was accentuated on Monday when the Central Bank closed the exchange rate wheel in the red of $261 million. The agency has already sold more than $1.3 billion this month and is piling up a red exceeding US$ 2,200 millionin the worst start to the year in terms of accumulation of reserves since the end of convertibility.
In this context, the blue dollar advanced by three pesos and it closed at $386, equal to the highest price of the year since last January 31st. Financial dollars, for their part, remained stable, with MEP at $387.2 and cash with liquid at $403.4.
According to sources in the economics team, this Monday’s sales were partially offset by the proceeds of 285 million dollars from credits already agreed with CAF and BICE. “Credits enter the RRII without going through the market, that’s why the balance of sales in the Mulc,” they explained.
Like last week, sales in the central foreign exchange market were not to meet import demand but to assist provinces and businesses buying dollars to meet financial commitments. “YPF had access to the market for 20 million for the payment of a ON, Santa Fe for 26 million for a bond of the province and Enarsa for 262 million for the advance payment of the LNG”, said the sources questioned.
“These payments had to be made and do not alter the BCRA’s forecast for the first quarter of the year,” they assured. In the midst of negotiations with the IMF for the payment of the maturities foreseen for this month, The Central also carried out the exchange of currencies with China – swap – for 3,000 million dollars.
“In these days, before the end of the month, a fourth disbursement of a billion dollars should come. And there is one last disbursement which will certainly be in April “, they detailed in the Government.
This amount is part of the $18,500 million swap agreed with China, of which $5,000 million was announced to be “freely available”. That is to say, again from the official version, these operations “do not alter the level of RRII but rather provide liquidity for interventions in the foreign exchange market“.
The operation of the organization chaired by Miguel Pesce takes place in the context of a significant drop in net reserves, mainly caused by the advance of agricultural liquidations in December of last year due to the “soybean dollar 2” program and in the context of the worst droughts of the past 14 years, which jeopardizes future income.
“As you can see, the central bank has a flow problem,” PPI analysts said. According to his estimates, Over the past 43 rounds, the organization has already sold nearly $2.5 billiona negative balance surpassed only by pre-crisis sales of October 2020, which totaled $2.94 billion.
While rumors about the doubling of the exchange rate are gaining strength, in the economic team highlighted that the disbursements of dollars that were calculated this Monday, and that had already been announced by Sergio Massa at the beginning of the month, “are entering the Reserves and are freely available”.
At the same time, they anticipated that: “for companies that trade with China in local currencies, i.e. pay in yuan, the possibility of changing the payment terms is being evaluated”.
AQ
Source: Clarin
