Before traveling to China, Sergio Massa lowered the order to manage the dollars until funds appear from outside. The lack of foreign currency led in recent days to negotiate greater restrictions with large companies, including automakers, but the "planning" also included a sweetener: a "dollarized" bond to tempt oil companies to advance foreign currency to finance their imports and obtain some coverage for their pesos.
Specifically, the Central Bank relaunched a bill that could be settled in pesos and adjusted for the official exchange rate, at a zero rate (LEDIV). Thus, if energy companies settle credits from abroad or advance exports for a minimum period of 180 days to pay for imports, with the pesos they did not use to buy dollars at the official value they will be able to buy BCRA securities to cover themselves from an eventual devaluation in the future.
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It is like an exchange insurance against external financing, they advance the dollars and next year when they have to return them, they are returned the pesos that they did not use at updated value, "they explained in an official dispatch. The regulation was published on Wednesday, the same day that the Government notified the companies that import fuel the most (YPF, Raizen and Trafigura) of the new scheme to self-finance purchases abroad for up to 90 days.
The system implies that they must obtain dollars from their parent companies or from international banks by the exchange rate. The novelty is that they are offered a mechanism to compensate for the "effort", but the private oil companies believe that it is "half a Chinese". Their main fear is to borrow in dollars to import fuels that they then sell in the local market in pesos at a regulated price (an increase of 4%, when the official devaluation is 7% per month).
The changes that Massa began devising in February thus face an unexpected complication, which is the fate of the pesos that firms will not use to buy dollars and pay for imports. Fundamentally, because of the doubts that exist in some private to "lend" pesos to the Central. "The feeling is that it is very risky to import products under these conditions and the letter would not fully cover that risk," said an energy sector source.
In fact, the letter fulfills a function similar to the fixed term "chacarero". The Central Bank launched in June last year that instrument tied to the value of cereals and the official dollar. The expectation was that producers sell their grains and exporters liquidate dollars, but it did not have the expected results and with the arrival of Massa, progress was made with the soybean dollar, an initiative that lost firepower in its last edition and expires this week.
The difference in the energy sector is that the government has a key player: YPF. The semi-state company did not specify if they are going to place the surplus pesos to the BCRA. With winter approaching, the Minister of Economy is concerned about the increase in demand for fuels (and dollars), an area where Argentine Energy (ENARSA) and the wholesale administrator of the electricity market, CAMMESA, stand out.
In this framework, they also negotiate with automakers, mass consumption and food companies. The idea is to "free" $3 billion of imports for other sectors. In the case of the terminals, the authorities were more demanding: they asked them to finance themselves abroad with terms of up to 000 days to import cars and 195 to buy parts, instead of the 75 and 120 days in force. "It's going to be the new deadlines," one executive admitted.
AQ
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