From the flexibility of the stockpity for “human persons”, the purchase of dollars in the official change market has been beating records month by month. While the demand for savings and for tourism explains a good part of the output of foreign exchange, almost half of the operations are carried out against accounts from abroad, which may be reflecting the Restrictions on the part of companiesaccording to specialists.
As stressed Scopefrom a report published last week by the Central Bank (BCRA), in July the net dollar purchase “ticket” reached about US $ 3,041 million. Since the monetary authority has records (January 2007), this figure was only surpassed by the October 2019, prior to the imposition of the stock of US $ 200 by the Mauricio Macri government.
In addition, If all the concepts made to the formation of external assets (FAE) are taken into account, the number amounts to $ S5.807 million. In this case it was a absolute record.
The strategy of companies to avoid the stocks and cancel debts
Punctually the relevance of the component accounted for as “Other investments”which since April represented a purchase of US $ 7,541 million (US $ 2,980 million alone in July), thus explaining 47.5% of the FAE. As explained to this media, the director of the CP consultant, Pablo Moldovan, these operations are made against accounts abroad and “can be associated with Purchases that supply the elusion of the stock over companies and complicate exchange management“
The economist explained that these currencies in exterior accounts They provide offer to the CCL dollar market, which allow companies to cancel external debt At a price similar to that of the officer (this Monday the wholesaler closed at $ 1,372, while the CCL did so at $ 1,391).
Moldovan added that even BCRA himself recognizes this type of maneuvers by capturing in his report that “in July the importers would have canceled imports for imports for US $ 1,400 million through alternative markets to the officer and Bopreal.”
Something similar said Federico MachadoEconomist of the Policies Observatory for the National Economy (Open). “It is very possible that the extraordinary magnitude of the FAE of these months is due to the arbitration between official and financial, which arises from the restriction of companies to buy dollars. In this way, human people buy currencies from the officer and sell them to companies through financial, arbitrating both markets“He deepened.
Still to the dollar: closer to eliminating it completely or restricting restrictions?
With the relaxation of the CEPO, the government expected to send a positive signal to the markets, in the midst of the closing of a new agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which will generate calm in the dollar contributions and promote the price of Argentine assets. However, financial volatility unleashed from the failed disarmament of Lefis, the stagnation of economic activity and the alleged corruption scandals inside the ruling party interrupted that optimism that seemed to be generated.
Due to this combo of factors, and given the proximity of the legislative elections in the province of Buenos Aires, The demand for “hard” currency was increased. Within that framework, the opening of the FAE and the aforementioned elusion by companies complicates the management of exchange policy.
Faced with this scenario, it is worth asking whether the economic team is closer to completely lifting the stocks, or restricting restrictions. In this regard, Machado said “The most logical thing would be to open the stocks more to tend to normalize the financial arbitration that companies are doing.”
For its part, the analyst Amilcar Collante He said that a turning with the stocks would be counterproductive in terms of expectations, although he added that everything depends on the electoral result and support from the United States and the IMF. “I only see a recalibration of the stock after a very adverse result in the electionssomething that for now is not on stage. “
In a similar line, Guido Zackdirector of Economy of Fundar, said as positive the removal of restrictions for human people and He marked as the main problem to the series of “undined errors that came from the elimination of the Lefis.” “With relaxed stocks you can’t do anything with rates”he deepened.
From the Executive Power they say that these turbulence are the product of destabilizing attempts by the opposition, which seeks to erase the fiscal surplus. Consequently, according to his story, favorable elections for freedom progress would pave the way for a Standardization of the economy, which would include the return to international debt markets and the definitive purpose of the stocks.
Source: Ambito
