Ezequiel Burgo
03/05/2021 21:05
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 03/05/2021 21:05
The
country risk
closed this Friday at 1,593, thus approaching the 1,600 area.
It is the highest level since Argentina restructured the debt and exchanged the new bonds only six months ago.
That was the main economic achievement of the Government in its management and perhaps the primary objective that
Alberto Fernández
and
Martín Guzmán had set for themselves
.
The Minister of Economy was applauded at the Casa Rosada.
In a flash, the country risk fell that time from 2,100 points to 1,100 points.
It had reached 4,362.
Even today it continues to be above the level prior to
STEP
(900 points).
The index is compiled by JP Morgan.
It measures the difference between what a country pays for a 10-year loan and what the United States pays (an economy that issues its own currency to finance itself).
Argentina accesses market funds by paying 16% per year and the US Treasury 1.57%.
The rise in country risk accelerated during the week, particularly after the President's speech on Monday.
He ratified the strategy of the political wing (to the detriment of the Economy and the BCRA) that there will be no rush to close an agreement with the IMF.
The EMBI went from 1,515 to 1,593
.
Guzmán's expectation was that the cost of debt would continue to fall after the operation he promoted.
According to calculations by the consulting firm pxq, the swap saved Argentina from paying the private sector about US $ 41 billion in the coming years.
With the oxygen that this meant for fiscal accounts, country risk would tend to decline over time and the private sector would benefit from funding in a context of global hyper liquidity.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell spoke to The Wall Street Journal on Thursday saying that monetary policy will remain accommodative.
The minister does not have plans to finance himself in international markets and then the tools he will use to cover the fiscal red will be the debt in pesos and the monetary issue.
For that, it will be key that the fiscal deficit is as low as possible.
The Government in the Budget presented 4.5% of GDP.
But in the negotiations with the IMF scenarios are evaluated so that this deficit is lower.
But Guzmán has collided with a political restriction that is La Cámpora and the impossibility of adjusting the rates so that the subsidies at least do not increase this year.
According to an Eco Go calculation, if the fiscal deficit were 3.6%, Guzmán would have to search the domestic debt market for $ 500,000 of net financing and $ 900,000 of monetary issuance.
All this leads to doubts in the market not only about Guzmán's room for maneuver before La Cámpora but also that even when Argentina clears the maturities of the debt in dollars with private companies, it faces a problem of what economists call insolvency.
"The relief in maturities bought time but the market is not convinced of the direction of economic policy and bondholders have little incentive to keep bonds with very low coupons like those of Argentina,"
says Jorge Neyro, chief economist at ACM.
"No improvements are seen in the short term while the agreement with the IMF seems to be moving away in time
.
"
The program with the
Monetary Fund
is a separate chapter.
Argentina has to return US $ 44,000 million in disbursements in the next three years.
After restructuring the debt with private creditors, Guzmán asked the IMF to start negotiations to discuss a plan to refinance the payment.
Since then the comings and goings have not stopped.
Argentina made decisions that have moved it further away from that objective (although the fiscal deficit has been closing and the emission has fallen) as well as the attacks by Rosada on the IMF threatening to prosecute the Macri agreement.
The country risk has not stopped rising since the negotiations began, which still do not clear up the uncertainty about the course.
From the 1,300-1,400 points they went to 1,600 points.
Another factor that influenced the rise in country risk this week is the
global
issue
.
There was a devaluation of
emerging
currencies
and an appreciation of the dollar worldwide (2.3% in the year).