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The "endurance", the supercepo and the challenge of getting savers to keep the pesos

2020-09-26T15:20:55.949Z


Tighter restrictions on buying dollars appear to have pushed the "cliff" away. And the economic team of Alberto Fernández now aims to direct the negotiations with the IMF to "get through the spring."


Daniel Fernandez Canedo

09/26/2020 - 12:05

  • Clarín.com

  • Economy

President Alberto Fernández has been insisting that "Argentines have to get used to

saving in pesos

."

The phrase is already commonplace in politics for the last 60 years.

The presidential concept is accompanied by

the "endurance" strategy

designed with what is known as the "super stock" to stop the drainage of the Central Bank's reserves that occurs through the sale of US $ 200 to millions of people every month .

From the official point of view, this drainage managed to stop and the feeling is that

"we are already further from the precipice

.

"

The figure of the farthest cliff responds to the fact that the Central believes that from now on the drip of dollars will be significantly reduced and that, ultimately, when Fernández says that "we have to get to put order" would be saying that he

is determined to deepen the measures

to continue "holding on."

There are two key questions: 1) what would order be?

and 2) how long does the policy of endurance extend?

The concept of "tidying up" opens windows to at least two possibilities.

One of them is that inside and outside the Government it is considered that the

outright

elimination of the quota

of US $ 200 would have been less harmful than the "super stock" that ended up affecting several of the main companies in the country by forcing them to refinance the 60 % of external capital maturities until March of next year.

The other is a

devaluation

that Fernández wants to avoid by all means.

The President knows that a devaluation would trigger another round of inflation and fall in income just as the official data is about to be released that poverty would have risen to 46% in the second half of the year.

The government is convinced that the official dollar is not backward (technically correct) and began to reconstruct the story that those who buy dollars are "stoked" and

"speculators"

.

The problem is that in this way it collides with the four million Argentines who have been buying the US $ 200 monthly.

For the second question, that of "until when the policy of endurance", the Ministry of Economy and the Central Bank have a unified answer (it does not occur with the quota of US $ 200).

Both agree that directing the negotiations with the Monetary Fund will help

"pass the spring"

until the end of the year, when some dollars from wheat exports will enter, which could stretch the reserves until March-April, when the dollar saviors should arrive. of soybeans.

The bridge until March is very long and the Government will have to show not only that it managed to close the

trickle

but also that it can strengthen the Central Bank's reserves.

Meanwhile, there is another trickle that is being closely followed inside and outside the Government: that of dollar deposits.

Without fanfare, and as is traditional in times of uncertainty and mistrust, the path of dollars

from the financial system to the "cushion"

is pronounced

.

Banks are stocked with dollars, despite the lower number of flights that come with US bills due to the pandemic, and the government emphasizes that

"the worst thing they could do"

is intervene in that segment.

The scheme of deposits in dollars, with the reverse that banks can

only lend them to exporters that generate dollars

, has shown good transit in crisis situations and it is to be hoped that this will not be the exception.

And what will the Government do to help Argentines save in pesos?

The annual rate of 33% for fixed terms is insufficient compared to private inflation forecasts of 40% or more.

From the Central Bank they hope that the Treasury will begin to take more pesos offering an

attractive income

for wholesalers that, in turn, will drag the rest of the savings.

It will reach?

The difficulties and lack of economic definitions in fiscal and monetary matters are insufficient to explain by themselves the financial distrust of the moment.

Once again,

politics

dyes

uncertainty

in a shrinking economy that demands other signals to try to get out of the well in which it has been for nine years.

LGP

Source: clarin

All business articles on 2020-09-26

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