Con net purchases for USD 640 million in the foreign exchange market, the Central Bank transits the best starter for a month from May 2021 and expects to continue at this pace in the coming weeks and meet the goal of accumulating USD 5,800 million in reserves set in the economic program agreed with the IMF hand in hand with a greater liquidation of the field.
Notwithstanding this foreign exchange income, Central reserves fell USD 386 so far this month by the constant devaluation of the main world currencies against the dollar. In particular, they were affected by the fall of the yuan, currency in which the BCRA has invested more than half of the reserves by virtue of the swap with the Central Bank of China.
The combination of an increase in international prices -especially those of the Energy-, the reopening of activities linked to the tourism and payment of financial debts of companies with a lower volume of agricultural exports they had prevented the BCRA from adding reserves until last month.
yesterday the official purchases in the wholesale market were scarce, barely for USD 5 millionwhich allowed to string together a series of eight consecutive sessions with balance in favor.
The amount operated in the cash segment (spot) totaled about USD 227.3 million, “with a strong share of demand” that limited the purchases of the Central to a balance of almost 5 million dollars.
Over the course of the year, the Official purchases reach 750 million dollars. The strengthening of reserves is one of the commitments assumed by the Government with the International Monetary Fund.
Historically the period between March and July are the months with the highest foreign exchange earnings to the country, due to the harvest of the soybean and agro-export complex, and the moment in which the monetary authority seeks to add reserves before the requirement of the program presented to the IMF, to accumulate USD 5,800 million at the end of the year.
The agreement with the IMF establishes a reserve accumulation goal of some USD 5.8 billion for the current year
According to the former president of the Central Bank and director of Fundación Capital, Martin Redradothe dilemma facing the Government is that of “short blanket” in which “if you accumulate reserves you are not giving dollars to the private sector so that it can buy inputs and, therefore, that falls on the level of activity and on inflation.”
”In recent days the Central Bank has taken up the issue of not stopping importing anyone else; That is why it has been able to buy USD 150 or USD 180 million per day, but it is not a sustainable dynamic over time,” Redrado pointed out.
Although agricultural export figures reached record values in the first four months (almost USD 11,100 million against USD 9,755 million for the same period in 2021), export volumes were reduced at the beginning of the thick harvest due to logistical problems in some areas of the core zone and trade union conflicts.
The Central Bank increases the monthly accumulated to USD 640 million, in a May that is seasonally very surplus in terms of foreign trade
According to data from the Congressional Budget Office (OPC), the collection of export duties was reduced 22% in April 2002 against April 2021 and 9.6% in the accumulated of the first four months of 2022 “product of lower records of quantities exported and union conflicts that affected the normal functioning of the agro-export sector”.
“Clearly april was a bad month in terms of pace of field settlement, which has to do with supply issues in some areas; there were logistical problems due to problems with diesel and other issues that will be corrected in May and June, surely, ”he told Web Ricardo Delgadoeconomist and director of the consulting firm Analytica.
“That’s why,” he maintained, “the The next two months are key to reaching USD 5.8 billiona goal that we see as feasible but that the war was not there when it was proposed, and this puts pressure on the exchange balance”.
In the first four months of the year, the monetary authority had a net balance in favor in the Single Free Exchange Market (MULC) of only USD 112 million when for the same period last year it had added USD 3,639 million.
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