With the return of Sergio Massa to Buenos Aires after his trip to Washington the economic team tries to agree on the implementation of the 3 soybean dollarwhich in this edition will have a chapter that will also include regional economies.
While this unified agricultural dollar, which seeks to encourage export liquidation, is assumed to start in April, until yesterday evening there was no certainty that it would actually start next Monday. And there weren’t even any details on the price of this new dollar, Though reports suggest it will be around $300.
“From now until early next week, the Ministry of Agriculture together with Customs, AFIP and the Cabinet Office will work on the implementation of the programme,” official sources indicated.
“The number will be negotiated”, indicated by reference to what the value of the new dollar will be. The business chambers were waiting to be called to finalize the scope of the plan.
The confirmation that there will be a new edition of the soy dollar was given by Massa himself on Thursday in Washington. There and after meeting with Gita Gopinath, deputy director of the Monetary Fund, he confirmed that from April there will be a “unified agricultural dollar”.
Massa anticipated in the US capital that this unified dollar would include soybeans and regional economies. Products such as rice, wine, peanuts and yerba mate would make that list and leave out other key locally produced crops, such as corn and wheat.
The exclusion of cereals is due to the fact that we try to prevent this exchange advantage from putting pressure on the local prices of foods such as meat, milk and bread, which are central to the definition of the inflation number and the basket of poverty.
In relation to regional economies, what has been confirmed so far is that during the harvest in Mendoza Massa anticipated that there would be a dollar differential for the sector, baptized as “dollar malbec”.
He soy dollar 3 will apply for 30 days while that of the regional economies would be in force for three months. Behind these announcements is the goal of strengthening reserves. The first quarter ended with a loss of reserves close to US$8,000 millionwhich made it necessary to renegotiate the objectives entrusted to the IMF.
At the same time, the lack of dollars leaves little room for the government to avoid a skyrocketing exchange rate and to authorize imports, which in turn undermine the growth of the economy.
The government’s goal is to add US$15 billion in exports between the second and third quarters. According to market data, today almost 6 million tons of soybeans remain unsold from the previous harvest. And for this current crop, it is estimated that another 25 million oilseeds will be available.
Up until now, the soy dollar had two versions. The first was in September, worth $200 to the dollar, which amassed sales of 13.4 million soybeans and entered $8.1 billion. And the second release was in December, at $230, with a deal of 6.4 million tons and foreign exchange for $3,155 million.
The calculation of the economist Fernando Marull is that “if the soybean producer decides to sell 25% of the crop in April, it would be close to 5,000 million dollars. This will depend on whether a dollar of 300 dollars convinces the producer, which means that the price of soybeans in pesos against the dollar MEP today will be almost 300 dollars, a relatively high level”.
“In previous experiences, the soybean dollar was 32% higher than the official exchange rate for that month,” said Jorge Vasconcelos, an economist at IERAL. If the same coefficient is applied today, the soybean dollar should be $275. But since the government’s need for foreign currency is much more pressing today, on the market it is speculated that it will be around $300.
“My guess is that this time the prize will be higher”, said Vasconcelos.
Source: Clarin
