Dollars lost, in the strange flight of imports

You can see: not even in the midst of the tremor that shakes the country and its own government, Cristina Kirchner stops indicating her great obsession of this time, namely Justice. And so in the same act she tries to drain away the sense of guilt that inevitably reaches her, it is clear that even the extent of the crisis did not change its priority system: her, always first.

He said these days, using journalistic data: “Precautionary rent? In other words, do companies that get a court order to withdraw official dollars from the BCRA, also lease them? He sure didn’t have that. With this judicial and commercial operation, Argentina becomes an almost impossible mission ”.

Packed by the multipurpose seam she had found, she went on with other figures: “Between January 2021 and March 2022, 1,847 million dollars of imports authorized by judges and prosecutors left the country. With protection “.

It is worth making a couple of clarifications regarding the Christinist barrier and arranged in order of appearance.

That sentence that Argentina seems like a mission impossible sounds consumed by usage and, in more than one sense, refers situations that have had it and that have it in the role of central protagonist, although he does not recognize it and it is not worth asking him to acknowledge it. Including, of course, those who touch it for the collapse of recent years.

The second clarification contextualizes and lowers the price of 1,847 million dollars of imports that judges and prosecutors have authorized with protection, from January 2021 to March 2022. During that period, imports totaled $ 81,152 millionwhich means the amount shaken by the vice president it barely accounts for 2.3% of transactions.

The operation had begun in mid-June when, in a multi-pronged game, he had talked about a “import party” and associated it with tax evasion and currency evasion maneuvers and the slogan of non-working officials. Added a not at all innocent reference to use of the pennailed to the facts that is his strategy to peel of what Alberto Fernández does.

The data of the latest INDEC report on foreign trade tell, better than the words of the vice president, what happens with imports and show that even if it was correct, the proposal on precautionary measures is overdue. They say more about official economic management and how much certain palace inmates cost the state.

To begin with, foreign purchases recorded $ 8,547 million in June, a new monthly record which is 44.6% more than the June 2021 record.

In the first half of 2022 we therefore have imports for 41,284 million dollars, which represents an increase of 44.4% compared to the same period last year and, once again, they are a historic sign.

Remarkable and at the same time suspicious, such unprecedented increases should be accompanied by a surge in economic activity instead of another that, indeed, has begun to drag on.

A classic equation between specialists says it For every percentage point that GDP grows, imports increase by three, from the holes of the local production chains that are covered by what comes from the outside. Translated, the long 44% that imports grow compared to 2021 it would be equivalent to a 14% increase in gross product.

The latest official data instead show that the EMAE, an indicator of economic activity that GDP anticipates, accumulates 6% between January and May: in general, it rises less than half of what would be included in the formula of the specialists. Even more: May shows a very low 0.3% compared to April and the twelve months of December 2021 vs. December 2022 project around 2%.

There is no way to explain, let’s say “by right”, the jumps that imports make. It is understood: some explanations that do not already refer to maneuvers bicycles that obviously run faster than locks that the Central Bank imposes or that they are bypassed or that are, after all, the children of the discretion of those who decide what can enter and what cannot.

It is true that the numbers are driven by the energy bill, but even this does not clarify the problem.

Not counting gas and fuel imports from both sides, the 44% increase in January-June 2022 compared to January-June 2021 would drop to 32%. Subsequently, the relationship with the GDP should give an economic growth close to 11%, that is almost 5 points more than that marked by the EMAE.

The fact is that, by the way, the first half statistics reveal 38% increases in purchases of electrical machines and appliances and 46% in chemical products which, in dollars, amount to $ 10.8 billion or $ 2 billion more than energy imports.

Even justified, the couple of examples in any case contrasts with the shortcomings that populate the production chains, which paralyze SMEs and force suspensions and layoffs.

It makes sense to retrace the numbers of energy imports, if only to ask where is the impact of sectoral improvements that, in self-evident self-praise, Energy Secretary Darío Martínez proclaims.

INDEC’s spreadsheets reveal that of the total increase, 84.5% came from the so-called price effect, ie the impact that the Russian invasion of Ukraine had on the international market. The amounts corresponded to them, in the complete combo, by the way a considerable 57%. The total climb sang 189%.

Other numbers, including official ones, show it in the last twelve months Diesel production increased by 6.4% against a doubling of demand: 15.7%. It then continues in the category of a country dependent on gas and fuels that come from abroad and very far from balancing the accounts.

Wherever you look we have, then, dollars escaping as if instead of an endless battery of locks and controls there was a dilapidated colander. Or that as soon as they enter the BCRA they escape on some bribe. Notorious and uncontrollable pressure on the liquidity of the entity.

Few things better explain the phenomenon of the exchange gap, a phenomenal reward for those who manage to get hold of Central Bank dollars at the exchange rate of 129 pesos and exchange them directly or indirectly at 322 or 342, depending on the liquidated cash used by companies. or the most popular blue. The gain of the pass ranges from 148 to 163%.

It is striking that Kirchnerism has remained stuck in such a dilemma despite the rain of foreign exchange that has blessed it since returning to power: no less than 30,000 million dollars, if the measure passes through the surplus that the trade balance accumulates until last June.

Even more impressive is the scale of oilseed and grain exports which were liquidated around the same time. Thanks to the 2022 version of super soybeans, that account marks $ 72.2 billion obviously included in the trade surplus.

Manual question: How much of that mountain of currency was finally left in the Central Bank’s cash register? The answer lies in net reserves, an approximation of the available dollars, and in private calculations it is said between 1,200 and 2,600 million dollars. If you prefer: less than a third of June imports.