End of a myth: it is wrong that Argentina is short of dollars

In the first quarter of 2022, agro-exporters liquidated $ 11 billion. However, at that time only the Central Bank was able to save $ 150 million and thus jeopardizes the fulfillment of the reserve purpose agreed upon with the Monetary Fund.

The most curious thing about this gap is that it occurs at the same time that Argentina registers the best terms of trade -the correlation between the prices of the products the country exports and the its imports- historically. For analysts consulted by ClarionContrary to the assurance of Vice President Cristina Kirchner -who two weeks ago blamed the lack of foreign exchange for inflation in Argentina-, the problem is not the lack of dollars, but the inability of the country to keep them.

The Consultatio Terms of Trade index shows that the current record is a historical record. It reached 154 points, 30 points above the level it had two years ago

From IERAL, they point out that in March, the variation in export prices was 22.6% year-on-year, while for imports it was 13.7%.

“It is wrong that Argentina has a problem with the lack of foreign exchange structure”said economist Ricardo Arriazu when speaking at the fourth edition of the cycle of Democracy and Development, organized by Clarion.

Arriazu explained that the country “is at the highest level of favorable related terms in history“, but the advent of these dollars is not being taken advantage of” because the public sector is spending. We invented the philosopher’s stone: being rich without working. We want to increase consumption by using the deficit. “

“Over the past 40 years we have had improvements in terms of trade 21 times. Each improvement in terms of trade has increased public spending as a percentage of GDP. Everything that comes from abroad we spend and we also borrow. And then we were surprised we had debt. How on Wednesday can a deficit be financed if it is not in debt?“Arriazu was shot.

The economist has made a racconto of the sources of foreign currency which the country can use. He estimated that “lithium resources are a whole GDP. With little effort, Argentina could export US $ 30,000 million of energy and another US $ 10,000 million of mining.. And we must add the potential of the countryside, which has the highest productivity rate in Argentina, and also the knowledge industry. After that, everyone moves on their own. “

“Let’s be careful Let’s eliminate the desire to spend and the anxiety of issuingArriazu’s end.

dilemmas of scarcity

Hernán Lacunza, Mauricio Macri’s last Minister of Economy, agreed with Arriazu. “In the last two years we have generated a trade surplus of $ 29 billion. It’s not that we can’t build dollars, we can’t keep them. “. And he exemplified that if the gas pipeline was built to expand exports from Vaca Muerta, “the dollars would go both ways because we can’t maintain them.”

Lacunza stressed the need for the Central Bank “add at least US $ 5,000 million between now and August. It is important to enter with dollars in the dry season of foreign exchange which runs from September to March. Going there with only $ 3.5bn of net reserves is difficult. There’s a dollar challenge in the summer and a dollar unknown in the coming winter. ”

To insist that the dollar is not in short supply, the former minister recalled that “the Monetary Fund dumped us US $ 10,000 million a year -US $ 4.5 billion SDR last year, plus another US $ 4.5 billion from the refund paid for the deal, plus another US $ 1 billion now coming from the resilience fund. “

“The IMF has expanded the cornice for us but it’s still messy. There are shortage problems – tariffs, interest rates, exchange rate slippage, social programs, provinces – that must be resolved in the next three months and that will be determined in the next fifteen months. ”

On this line of difficulty keeping the dollars, from IERAL they loaded inks into public spending. “The policy of expanding public spending, the case of March with a nominal increase of 84.9% year-on-year, this neutralizes the impact on the external accounts of that improvement in terms of tradewith an exchange rate now 14% less competitive than a year ago ”.

AQ