Tourists prefer the blue dollar.
The exchange rate gap between the wholesale dollar price and the blue dollar has oscillated in the last two months between 70 and 80%. And it’s playing against dollar revenue: it’s pushing foreign tourists into the informal market and increasing the services account deficit.
The calculation is simple: if a foreign tourist who leaves for Argentina pays for his consumption using a credit or debit card, he is faced with an exchange rate that $ 125 per dollarwhile if he sells his tickets in blue he receives $ 204 per dollar.
The consequence of this gap was that in April, tourists just settled $ 37 million in the official exchange market.
In April, despite the fact that there was a trade surplus of US $ 1,444 million, the Central Bank has only accumulated purchases for $ 150 million. In May, he did quite well: he had already pocketed US $ 1.1 billion, although it was far from the US $ 2.1 billion he earned in the same month last year.
Economist Andrés Borenstein explained that “despite excessive trade the Central has almost nothing left in the box. With stocks, it’s convenient for companies to continue canceling dollar credits and tourism is still on top of it, two areas where dollars have slipped. “
In April the deficit on the tourism account was $ 507 million. “Argentines have traveled again and the foreigners who set foot in Argentina are almost exclusively for the blue. Each concierge has a money changerBorenstein notes in his podcast “Economics in Three Minutes.”
the janitor dollar
The concierge dollar effect explains why tourists leave the official exchange market for April only $ 37 million. “In normal times that number is between $ 150 million and $ 200 million,” Borenstein details. “The good news is the tourists They should be feeding the blue at about US $ 120 per month and perhaps for this reason it traded below the price of cash with liquidation ” – $ 207 vs $ 212 in the near future.
At the same time, even with the tourist dollar at $ 207.5 (including the PAIS tax and the receipt of 35% as an advance on Revenues), Argentines traveling abroad increase their costs.
Argentina’s spending reached in dollars $ 544 million last month, it jumped 332% from one year to another. In the quarter, the tourism deficit has reached US $ 1,888 million.
On the other hand, higher foreign currency spending occurs in conjunction with a decrease in the number of individuals monthly accessing the US $ 200 quota of dollar savings.
In April they were 800,000 Argentines to buy savings in dollars, a decrease of 14% compared to the previous month. “As a result of lower costs due to lower ticket purchases (US $ 19 million less than in March) and due to higher revenues related to investments by overseas residents, the formation of foreign assets (FAE) closed with a level. of net expenses of US $ 31 million “, the consulting firm LCG details.
This consultant estimates that the chances of a reversal of this trend and the management of the Central Bank to increase the accumulation of foreign currency are small: there will be fewer exports and more demand for foreign currency to import.
“In the future, we expect that the level of exports will settle down, which came from seasonality itself, when the liquidation that came from the thick harvest is over. On the other hand, we expect that the levels of imports will continue depending on the level of overseas sales, due to the shortage of foreign currency in the economy, which could be exacerbated by rising fuel prices leading to higher payments for energy imports ”, they stay from LCG
Source: Clarin
