The Central Bank has bought only $ 27 million this month so far

In the latest round this week, the Central Bank was able to purchase only $ 7 million. So far in June, after a third of the month, the difficulties of Miguel Pesce’s team persist in finding dollars: they have barely managed to put in 27 million dollars.

The year did not go much better: the balance of purchases exceeds 1 billion dollars and jeopardizes the objective agreed with the Monetary Fund of add net reserves of US $ 5,800 million by the end of the year.

This year’s purchases are a far cry from those of the same period last year, when he managed to pocket more than $ 4 billion. Central’s performance was very poor in the first quarter of this year, although it managed to improve e in May take nearly US $ 800 million in the month.

Despite the rebound in May, the large amount of dollars that agriculture pours into the market is slipping through the fingers of the Central. The field is estimated to have been cleared $ 100 million a day in June. It hit $ 4.3 billion in May and is expected to hit $ 4.0 billion this month.

But hand in hand with this increased supply comes an increase in demand driven by imports. And in this sector, energy imports play a central role, which they took $ 500 million only this week.

Buying energy abroad becomes more expensive in two ways: on the one hand, because the Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered global prices. On the other hand, because this year the local production has decreased while the demand has grown. A) Yes, From one year to the next, energy exports went from accounting for 10% of the market to accounting for 20%.

A few days ago, the IMF approved the revision of the agreement corresponding to the first quarter and considered the forecasts to be satisfied. In this way, after the meeting on June 24 of the directors of the IMF, the new disbursement of 4 billion dollars for Argentina.

those currencies they are necessary for the country to meet the deadlines of the debt it maintains with the agencytherefore, although they provide temporary relief, they do not solve the underlying problem.

For analysts, the objective of the accumulation of reserves is the one that has the best chance of requesting an exemption from the organization headed by Kristalina Georgieva.

The goal of the second quarter demands add net reserves of $ 1.4 billion through the end of Juneaccording to the consulting firm LCG.

“We do not think that this violation will take the IMF by surprise, if we start from an agreement that from the beginning seemed ambitious, even if it affects how soon it arrives, especially in a context of favorable international prices”, they relaunched. from the Cohen group.

In the three weeks of June that remain, the field will close the strong part of the dollar settlement as they will have finished shipping the dense crop. Market sources indicate this liquidation has already started to slow and so far in June they are 10% lower than May records.

AQ