Dollars come in drops and show in spurts to import energy

At the Central Bank they recognize that fixing dollars of exporters have “strange” habit.

They attribute this to the fact that one day the exporters of grain and oil liquidated operations for US $ 600 million and the next US $ 100 million, where Central bought foreign currency a few days later, but the others have to sell on what This is considered the best time of the year. for the exchange balance.

These days, those responsible for irregular extermination are not those who traditionally manage agricultural exports, but the producers that they would keep the grains in the face of the uncertainty caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the drastic changes in global market conditions.

With annual inflation of 60%, an official dollar and peso interest rates lagging behind that inflation, the growers are sitting on their beans waiting for a clearer picture.

The global market shows that “superdollar”, combined capital shelter on U.S. Treasury bonds, hit raw material prices, but not especially the grains, which producers are determined to wait to be liquidated even if they need money for fertilizers and inputs for the next campaign.

The issue is sensitive, because it is an open secret that the Central Bank you don’t get the dollars you expect achieved early in the year to supply the needs of the second semester and with disturbing results in terms of energy imports.

The cost to import energy grew by 190% early in the year and this item explains a quarter of imports total with aggravating circumstances that aakyat along with lowering the temperature. And the dollars will be?

To the government they say that force companies to take out financing at 180 to pay for the increase in imports compared to last year managed to decompress the foreign exchange balance of over US $ 1,500 million.

The settlement of the dollars in the account dropped and the orders of the jet importers characterized the beginning of the year in which the interest rate on the peso helped little to those who had to separate from foreign currency.

In a weak but firm voice, the Central technicians asked Martín Guzmán handle rate increases of interest with more force to deal with the inflationary flash that accumulated 23% in the first quarter of the year and that, considering the Core inflation (no seasonality or rate) is 80% annualized.

Since the beginning of the year, the Central Bank’s reference rate has risen from 38 to 49% per annum, which in effective terms indicates a rate of 61.8%, which almost unbound with the cost of living that in one year increased by 58%.

Despite this virtual tie between inflation and rate, what is known as “carrytrade” -that the influx of dollars to be put into the peso, especially in bills indexed by the Treasury CER- it continuesin the understanding that the stability of the dollar is not at risk in the short term.

The exchange result for the first quarter forces us to rethink forecasts for the second semester: in 2021, Central was able to add 37% of settlements for the export of grains and oil to reserves. This year, only 1.4%.

As settlements rose 14% especially due to rising international grain prices, Central got 4% of the dollars raised through this channel in 2021.

In his career to continue despite strong questioning by Vice President Cristina Kirchner, Minister Martín Guzmán insisted that the important thing is to try to calm economic growth amid rising food prices of magnitude and the political government . crisis on the table preventing from seeing something clear by the end of the year tunnel. Like Sisyphus, every day the minister tries to climb the rock to the top of the mountain but the result of inflationary ends up in its collapse.