According to data from the Fundación Libertad y Progreso, between January and April the energy sector had a deficit of US$1,909 million., when last year, for the same period it had been US$777 million, and if observed in 2020, it had been US$315 million. The entity indicates that charges for exports of goods between January and April reached a historical peak of US$27,131 million (18.6% compared to the first quarter of 2021). Of these, US$13,053 million, 48%, corresponds to cereals and oilseeds. “However, the trade balance was lower than in 2021. In the accumulated January-April 2022 it was US$5,263 million, 80% of that registered in 2021. This was due to the fact that payments for imports of goods grew 33% year-on-year, au$s21,869 million”, explains the entity.
The report puts the magnifying glass on the services sector. “Historically, Argentina has had a deficit in its foreign services purchase-sale account. But in the first quarter of 2022, it more than tripled that registered in 2021, about US$3,093. million (versus US $ 886 million in 2021) ”, indicates the work. It is indicated in the analysis that “although charges for service exports increased 11%, payments for imports shot up 80%”. “We have a fairly complicated scenario when it comes to analyzing the fulfillment of the goal with the IMF because although this is one of the main sources in the second semester, we are not going to have the same level of liquidations as the first, and that implies that we are going to have a selling balance said Diego Piccardo, economist of the entity. He maintains that “the fulfillment of the goal is practically impossible unless the Central Bank makes an exchange rate movement that no one is waiting for today”.
In the same vein, Emmanuel Alvarez Agis, head of the consulting firm PxQ, stated in a recent presentation to investors that “with the best prices in history, the Central Bank was unable to buy reserves” and that this is due to a structural issue that is It manifests itself in the exchange rate gap and in something conjunctural. At that point, he said that due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the price of oil began to rise, which in turn boosted the decision of governments to buy in advance to have reserves. “In the first quarter we ate US$1,000 million for this”, Alvarez Agis summarized. But he also drew attention to the balance of services situation. “The result of the account is a deficit of US $ 1,000 million per month, motivated by tourism at the end of the pandemic” pointed out the economist, who also argued that one of the holes through which dollars are lost is the increase in the cost of freight. “The cost was from $100 million to $150 million per month and went up to $400 million,” he said.
Meanwhile, Martín Calveira, from IAE, the business school of the Austral University, stated that “imports grew 41.6% in the first quarter, to US$7.3 billion, compared to exports of US$6.13 billion ”. “There was a strong increase in fuels and lubricants, of US$2.1 billion, with a 195% increase in the first quarter. In qualitative terms, the economic recovery does not seem to be sustained, it generates greater importation of goods and supplies and energy supplies, which is not only affected by quantities but by prices, The other factor is the non-renewal of debt by companies, which are not doing it because of the exchange trap,” he said.
Source: Ambito
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