Annabella quiroga
09/10/2021 1:40 PM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 09/10/2021 1:40 PM
With more than
US $ 500 million
sold so far this month to control the level of the dollar in the run-up to the elections, the Central Bank is already feeling the rise in exchange rate pressure.
Economic analysts warn that at this rate, net reserves, the entity's true firepower, would vanish by the end of the year.
However, in the market they discount that although the reserves are going to fall,
the Central Bank will take measures to stop the bleeding
if the high dollarization is maintained in the coming weeks.
This Friday, on the last business day before STEP, the blue dollar takes a breather and
retreats to $ 185,
down $ 1.50 from yesterday's close.
Thus the gap yields to 89%.
"The BCRA has already spent
US $ 500 million
of its reserves so far in September between its intervention in the official market and the bond market. At this rate, net reserves
would turn negative towards the end of the year,
" says the consulting firm Equilibra .
With data as of September 6, net reserves stood at
US $ 6,152 million.
"This implies that the current rate of drainage of US $ 400 million per week is not sustainable."
The consultancy details that sales in the official market "are even higher than in the week prior to the 2019 primaries, when the national Treasury held daily auctions for
US $ 60 million
."
After the PASO two years ago, the Central's intervention climbed to a daily average of
US $ 150 million
during the second half of August and reached its maximum for the year in October, with
US $ 812 million
.
That drain was cut with the exchange stocks, which after the presidential elections of October 27, 2019, imposed a limit of US $ 200 on the monthly purchase of savings dollars.
What will be the strategy of the Central to defend the reserves now?
From the consulting firm Equilibra they see three potential measures.
The first is
"to tighten restrictions
, for example, forcing banks to sell part of their position in dollars."
Another alternative is to "
close the tap for importers
".
Per month imports are around US $ 5,800 million and this level is expected to remain in the rest of the year.
This rise is influenced by the recovery of the economy and also an advance in operations to hedge against a potential tourniquet in the permits to operate or a rise in the dollar.
The third possibility is to strongly accelerate the daily rate of depreciation of the official exchange rate.
Equilibra assigns
"a minimal possibility of occurrence
" to
this last alternative
.
An indication of this is that the Treasury once again offered dollar linked instruments in last Thursday's tender, giving signs that "it is not in its plans to sharply adjust the exchange rate, while after three months without intervention, it returned to sell futures positions in ROFEX ".
For the consultant, "
the exchange rate adjustment will only take place after the legislative elections in November
.
"
Hold the rags
Martín Polo, chief economist of the Cohen group, also pointed out that the Central "again intervened in the futures market in August, a segment in which it had remained on the sidelines between May and July. In this way they went to the
US
Central
$ 300 million
last month and another
$ 300 million would go away
this month. "
"
The exchange rate is not free
. We see a very pressured exchange rate, the thermometer will be the Central sales. Our base scenario is an exchange rate moving between
1 and 1.5%
from now to November and from there this
crawling peg
is going to have to accelerate, inexorably. "
For Polo until the legislative elections, the Central "is
going to put up with the rags
" and will continue to sell foreign currency so that the exchange rate does not skyrocket,
The impact of the Central's strategy goes beyond the exchange market.
From the IERAL they point out that "
the level of freely available reserves puts a cap on the possibilities of economic expansion
.
"
In the Mediterranean Foundation they point out that "the recovery is conditional on the reserves not declining, which requires expanding the exported quantities, or that the prices of Argentine exports remain high."
But they emphasize that "the expansion in quantities will be difficult with the current conditions of exchange rate and structural competitiveness and the exchange gap."
AQ
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