Annabella quiroga
08/14/2021 6:01 AM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 08/14/2021 6:01 AM
In 2020, inflation was 36.1%, the wholesale dollar rose 40% and beat it by one head.
This year,
the one that will win - and by several bodies - is inflation
.
With 29.1% accumulated in seven months, the consulting firms predict that it will close the year on the verge of 50%, while the dollar will advance about 30%, 20 percentage points less.
Until today the official wholesale exchange rate increased 15.4%.
On Friday it closed at
$ 97.11
.
Minister Martín Guzmán reaffirmed that at the end of the year the dollar will end at $ 102.4, as it is in the 2021 Budget. This implies
a rise of less than one peso per month.
The Market Expectations Survey (REM) forecasts indicate that the currency will close the year at
$ 107.1.
This implies an advance of
27.5%
for the whole year.
The divergence of forecasts is based on the fact that private economists discount that in the last part of the year,
the Central will let the dollar run somewhat more,
in part so as not to consume so many dollars in exchange control.
Today the stock of available net reserves is around US $ 7,000 million.
By December, the consulting firms estimate that this stock will be reduced to between US $ 3,500 and US $ 5,400 million.
Behind this reduction is the use of foreign currency to pay debts, imports and to intervene both in the free exchange market and in that of financial dollars to prevent prices from skyrocketing.
According to the GMA consultancy, "to reach a value of $ 102.40, the (average) promise of Martín Guzmán for December,
the dollar should rise only 5.4% in the remainder of 2021
assuming that this target is to end. per month. In other words, the dollar should move at an average rate of 1.2% per month whose crawling peg would be 15% annualized. "
The consulting firm LCG points out that
"the annualized depreciation rate stands at 16%
, sustaining the slow pace of depreciation of the peso as the main tool of its anti-inflationary policy."
"Efforts to anchor the official dollar paid off at the margin. In recent months
the average depreciation rate fell from 3% per month to 1.2%
, while prices only decreased from 4% to 3%," he points out. the consultant.
LCG details that the widening of the exchange gap (today 15 percentage points compared to 4 months ago) "
may play against so that the official exchange rate is taken as a reference
."
LCG forecasts that inflation will continue to average 3.1% per month and that it would touch 50% by December 2021. For Ecolatina it will reach 48.5% and for ACM it will reach 48.3%.
"Monetary policy has veered sharply towards an exchange rate anchor. Thus, by the end of the year we expect the variation in the exchange rate to
be 20 percentage points below the increase in prices,
" estimates LCG.
Inflationary anchor
For the consultancy GMA, the slowdown in the
crawling peg
"is an anchor that is finally helping to slow down the rate of advance in prices. The annualized speed of the microdevaluations decreased during this year and, in recent months, is
12%, the lowest since the start of the pandemic
. "
GMA emphasizes that "the risks of lagging the price of the dollar with respect to inflation are known and would
accelerate the deterioration of the macro,
especially the dynamics of reserves."
"Although the multilateral real exchange rate appreciated 10% in 2021, the high terms of trade (due to the commodities bonanza) help so that external competitiveness does not deteriorate rapidly."
AQ
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