Although the Secretary of Agriculture Juan José Bahillo denied on Saturday that the Soybean Dollar 3 is on the agenda of the Ministry of Economy, the difficulties of the Central Bank to add foreign currency lead to the beginning of exploring the mechanisms that would allow strengthening the net reserves
.
Once again, in a matter of dollars, the Government is running against the clock: the net reserves, those that the Central can effectively dispose of, are around US
$4.4 billion and the commitment assumed with the Monetary Fund is to bring them to US$7.8 billion by 31 March
.
The agreed goal seems practically impossible to meet: so far in February, Miguel Pesce's team has sold
US$ 903 million to cover market demand, even in the midst of import restrictions
.
And there are no prospects that suggest that this selling trend could be reversed in the coming weeks, unless Minister Sergio Massa pulls another rabbit out of the hat.
In this scenario, the expectation that
the third version of the soybean dollar could accelerate
and act as a bridge until the arrival of the heavy crop gains weight.
With this program, the Government recognizes for a limited period
a more advantageous exchange rate
for those who go out to sell their production.
Although the original expectation -also not confirmed by the Government- was that the soybean dollar 3 would arrive together with the heavy harvest from April/May, the poor performance of the Central Bank could lead to the appearance of a new version of this plan to take advantage of the liquidation of the remaining oilseed from the past harvest.
In addition to the lack of dollars, another reason that would drive the advance of the 3 soybean dollar is that the drought delayed planting, which means that
part of the harvest expected for April will only arrive in May.
According to Portfolio Personal Inversiones (PPI), in order to meet the goal agreed with the Monetary Fund, the BCRA should buy practically the entire remaining soybean stock of between
6 and 7 million tons
, which, in dollar terms, would be equivalent to US $3.4–4 billion.
The consultancy Delphos points out that
"the Government is faced with the need to get another 'rabbit out of the galley' such as a 'soybean dollar 3', a REPO loan or some other similar measure. Another option could be to formally request
a 'waiver' from the Fund for the reserve goal for March due to the extreme drought that the field is facing and then implement a soybean dollar in the second quarter."
According to the PPI estimate, net reserves are at
US$4,462 million, so the BCRA needs to increase its cash flow by US$4,800 million
to be in peace with the IMF.
"It is probable that, just as it happened in September and December,
the economic team will once again choose the soybean dollar as a mechanism to get closer to the reserve goal
," they point out from PPI.
The macroeconomic report from CREA, the entity that brings together agricultural entrepreneurs, indicates that the previous versions of the soybean dollar played a key role so that throughout 2022 the Central could meet the reserve accumulation goals.
They detail that in the months in which the soybean dollar was in force,
the Central Bank bought US$1,624 million while in the rest of the year the monetary authority closed with an average selling balance of US$147 million.
Thus, now the Government suffers from the shortage of soybeans that it monopolized in previous months.
And he remains a prisoner of his own strategy, since with the background of 2022 in this harvest, the producers cling to the silobolsas waiting for the exchange rate to improve.
Not all the misfortune of the Central is a consequence of local politics.
The international context also worked against him, with the Federal Reserve taking the rate to 4.5%, which makes it difficult for emerging countries to retain currency.
For this reason, they mark from CREA that
"it is expected that the measures of differential exchange rates
, the exchange rate gap, the restrictions on the purchase of foreign currency and imports will deepen."
AQ