While a definition on the "saving dollar" is imminent, a quiet adjustment is already underway

Daniel Fernandez Canedo

09/05/2020 - 13:27

• Clarín.com

• Economy

If the

continues to increase at a rate of 2.7% per month, it would reach $ 83 by the end of the year, but there are consultants who forecast it at $ 100 or more.

President Alberto Fernández assured in

por TN that the exchange rate will rise with inflation and ruled out that it would devalue the peso, although he insisted that Argentina

to think about being able to grow.

Fernández defined that the three premises he points to with respect to the external sector are: strengthening the

Central Bank's

, increasing exports and having a

.

On a fourth premise, referring to the future of the

, hinting that time and the dripping of Central Bank reserves will determine what to do.

The fact that the Central Bank had to disburse US $ 430 million in three days this month after having sold US $ 1,250 million in August for the quota of US $ 200 per person of the "savings dollar" makes it clear that

.

A market with four million buyers and a single seller, which is renewed month after month, is on the verge that either the Central cuts the supply, or it gets

of foreign currency to buyers, or raise the price to discourage purchases.

Both the Deputy Chief of Cabinet, Cecilia Todesca, and the head of the Central, Miguel Angel Pesce, are inclined to end the saving dollar or limit the amounts even more.

They believe that

although they bet that with the total closure of the debt swap the specter of a strong devaluation with the consequent inflationary flash will disappear.

The main defender of the $ 200 per month window is Martín Guzmán.

The minister believes that

($ 132), which is taken as a reference value by companies and businesses when defining the prices of their products.

One point to bear in mind is that

but neither

is

"sticking" the dollar as a means to calm inflation and allow a recovery in real wages.

An official dollar tied to inflation (in eight months it rose 24%) is on the way to surpass most of the joint agreements that, although few were closed as a result of the pandemic, set wage increases of between 25% and 40% in some cases exceptional sectors linked to technology.

This is how the adjustment began to take shape, about which the Government will not speak but which is clearly reflected in the fact that the dollar rises more than wages, in the disengagement of pensions from inflation, in the

bond

going from monthly to bimonthly and from there to an indefinite situation after reaching nine million people, and that added to the wealth tax that Congress deals with and the changes in Profits studied by the AFIP.

There is an adjustment underway after Martín Guzmán said that next year's fiscal deficit will point to 4.5% of GDP and that everything will be known on September 15 with the presentation of the Budget.

Turning the cards, EcoGo, the consulting firm headed by

, maintains in its latest report on the adjustment underway that "there is an incipient fiscal consolidation with a Treasury that is beginning to get pesos in an 'over-supplied' market" and that "of the $ 430,000 million that the Central transferred to the Treasury in May, and the average $ 210,000 million in June and July, in August the BCRA check amounted to only $ 40,000 million."

In Dal Poggetto's calculations, primary spending is now growing at half the rate of April and May, and would have continued to decline in August.

The attempt to align the main economic variables to bring a plan to the IMF faces two important barriers: the distrust of a good part of the economic agents about official decisions and the political effervescence between the Government and the opposition, which usually emits

LGP