The next few hours will be decisive in trying to tame the dollar and define its political future. Sergio Massa knows this, perhaps better than Cristina Kirchner or Alberto Fernández, given that he leads the Ministry of Economy. On Fridays He was in a meeting until 11.45pm in his office and the weekend left instructions. The focus is on the opening of the markets, the Central Bank and the negotiation with the IMF, after a stormy week.
the minister He urgently needs dollars. Without reservations, not only does all hope of stability vanish and the specter of devaluation is projected. The possibility of his candidacy or, even worse, of arriving at STEP with “the house in order” is also complicated. All of this conspires the crisis that last week triggered the parallel dollar to $455, the drying up of reserves and a tightening of equities, followed by the resignation of the President upon his re-election.
“After the political uproar and the Aracre affair, order is being made,” they say close to Massa. The abrupt termination of soy dollar deals on Wednesday exposed tensions with the countryside and the fragility of the central bank. He was able to buy nearly $300 million on Friday alone. The import tourniquet has halted operations, a situation that will continue this Monday. The key will fail if the BCRA purchases reserves and contains the CCL/MEP.
In these moments, the Fondo appears as one of the main lifeguards. In the last few hours, the minister has prepared the trip that part of his team will probably make to Washington next Thursday. The goal is “rebalance” the program with softer goals for the impact of the drought and for a possible advance of disbursements, an alternative that has triggered a new controversy with the opposition and could further exacerbate the organization.
The representative before the IMF, Sergio Chodos, on Sunday accused three economists in Mauricio Macri’s administration of having torpedoed the bailout plan through an alleged request to the organization to stop assistance until the next government takes office. in dialogue with clarion, called them “unpatria” for having asked that there be no “advances or disbursements”. The discussion is no less: between June and December, the agreement expects the arrival of US$ 10,600 million.
Chodos allegedly targeted the former head of the central bank, Guido Sandleris, the former finance minister, Alfonso Prat Gay, and his successor, Hernán Lacunza, according to official sources. “Asking the Fund not to give money to Argentina is asking it to be complicit in the default”, they shot. But the opposition denied. “Conspiracy theory is always useful to explain one’s flaws”Lacunza said on Twitter.
In this tense climate, Massa will advance this week on an agenda that will seek to accelerate the inflow of funds. This is the $520 million negotiation with China for Patagonia dams, $380 million from multilateral organizations, possible savings of $700 million a month using the yuan of imports from the Asian country and US$ 680 million in financing from CAF since June.
The government has already appealed for foreign aid. In January, he announced the activation of the $5,000 million China swap, as blue and financial dollars rebounded from $346 to $338. That same month, after buying back dollar bonds, he revived the idea of a credit with external banks (repo). And in March, part of the exchange would be reactivated. The truth is that $8,091 million of gross reserves were lost during the year.
In this context, the minister has commissioned a “confidential” report on the entry and exit of dollars. A man from the deputy minister’s area, Gabriel Rubinstein, was questioned by the undersecretary for economic planning, Germán Plessen. Former official of Cristina Kirchner and economist close to Cámpora, a group that has remained silent in recent days in the face of the currency and political crisis that has catapulted the exchange rate gap above 100%.
Massa is also attentive to the ball of pesos in the hands of banks, funds and provinces placed in Treasury bills. The peso debt auction this Thursday is to roll over a maturity of nearly $1 trillion, an unprecedented amount under current management.
Source: Clarin
