What are the exchange rate goals today?

Despite the latest denials of the government, the versions that would try to tighten the exchange rate even more continue to circulate on the market as the difficulty of the Central Bank in holding the dollars becomes more palpable every day.

The spokesperson for the Presidency, Gabriela Cerruti, assured today that “the government does not plan to apply stocks or restrictions“ to the purchase of foreign currency.

“We absolutely exclude the announcement of a measure in this sense. The Minister of Economy (Martín Guzmán) has asked me to do so,” Cerruti said this morning in the usual press conference on Thursday at the Government House.

So far, dollar access stocks operate at different levels.

Purchase savings in dollars

Since October 2019, after the defeat of macrism in the presidential elections, there has been a stockpile of $ 200 monthly purchasable in the bank or through home banking.

As of August 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, more than four million people had access to that quota. In September of that year, the government began to apply filters: those who receive social plans, or have no formal income or received some kind of support from the government during the pandemic, even the workers of companies that entered the ATP, cannot buy .

These restrictions, initially foreseen for 12 months, have become permanent. Like this less than a million people can buy this way today.

financial dollars

With the strengthening of shares, savers and companies they began to turn to the MEP dollar and cash with liqui. To limit demand in this way, the government has applied restrictions. For example, those who bought the savings dollar could not trade with financial dollars.

Also a parking lot has been set up which extended the time to get the dollars. And it has been established that you can only transfer foreign currency if you have your own account, without using third party accounts.

No more ticket costs

In the last few months of last year, the government was turning off the tap on the exit of dollars. Last November, The Central Bank has prohibited the installment financing of purchases made by credit cards for tickets abroad and other tourist services outside the country (accommodation, car rental, etc.),

The government denied today that more barriers are applied to buying dollars, but he did not comment on new restrictions on the dollar card. 500 million US dollars per month goes through this path.

Import restrictions

For more than a year, the government has been limiting imports through various measures. This translated into lack of inputs for production and basic consumer goodslike tires. It is now speculated that this tap will be shut down even more and all importers will be forced to carry out further import procedures.

This year, imports have grown despite stocks because the burden of energy and fuel purchases increasesmade more expensive by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But it also affects the decision of importers to speed up purchases to protect yourself from a bigger trap or a jump in the dollar.

Debts of companies abroad

The Central Bank restricted access to foreign currency for companies with overseas debt and forced them to refinance their maturities and use their dollars in the case of those with overseas deposits. Payments of debts between companies of the same group and el transfer of profits abroad.

This week, the Central reported it “The restructuring of private debt has saved over $ 26 billion since 2020”. He recalled that in this period there were due maturities of about 32,000 million US dollars, but according to the regulations implemented, the outflow of foreign exchange for this concept was 5 billion dollarsor 17% of the total.

Furthermore, in the pandemic, The government has decided to limit the purchase of dollars to all companies that have access to a discounted line of the state.

AQ