From this Wednesday the Central Bank has authorized the import of SMEs access to dollars pay its debts to foreign suppliers.
I am 10,000 SMEs that will be able to purchase foreign currency and thus pay off the debt accumulated during Sergio Massa’s management as Minister of Economy.
In this way, from today, importers with debts registered up to 12/13/2023 – not exceeding $500,000 and declared in the register − to initiate payment to your suppliers.
The authorization of this operation had no impact on the foreign exchange market, in a round in which the Central Bank took most of the available dollars. The monetary authority bought this Wednesday 225 million dollars and accumulate US$1,025 millions from the beginning of the month e $7.16 billion from last December’s devaluation.
According to official data, among the SMEs authorized to access the Single and Free Trade Market (MULC), 5,100 are micro-enterprises, 3,900 are classified as small and another 1,000 are medium-sized.
The scheme for accessing the official dollar will respect the following order: the first installment will amount to 50,000 US dollars; the second will be for another 100,000 dollars – starting from March 10th -; while the last installment will concern the rest of the amount due − starting from 10 April this year −.
SMEs that were excluded from this mechanism for reporting debts exceeding $500,000 were given priority access to subscribe to the first tender of Series 2 of BOPREAL, the bond intended for importers.
The BOPREAL is a dollar-denominated bond with local legislation and pays a 5% annual coupon.
In January, the government activated a registry for importing companies of all sizes to record debt accrued to their suppliers as a result of the previous administration not allowing them access to the dollar due to foreign currency shortages.
This register recorded net debts for 42.6 billion dollars, after discounting almost 8.5 billion dollars declared canceled without access to the foreign exchange market.
This record “made it possible to determine it with “With 1.2 billion dollars we can provide a solution to 80% of importing SMEs.”said the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, a few days ago in a post on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
From CAME, the chamber representing SMEs, they highlighted the provision made by the government “It is essential to organize the private payment system and give certainty to the world.”
“At the same time, we emphasize that the focus is on the industrial sector, since it is where it is most necessary to support the flow of goods for production and the level of activity of SMEs,” they said.
Source: Clarin
