Data from the highest monetary entity indicate that Throughout 2020, the Government had an exchange buffer in which the TCRM was devalued by about 20 points. It began like this around July of that year and ended at the end of the pandemic at an almost equilibrium level, which lasted until April of this year. On April 22, the real exchange rate began to fall behind by 99 points.
What is most clear to financial operators is that the monetary entity is going to play very fine with crawling to avoid complicating imbalances. The official exchange rate of $148 at wholesale and $151 at retail should grow 10% to return to the level indicated by the commitment assumed with the IMF in March.
Santiago Manoukian, economist at Ecolatina, told Ámbito that “there is no room to continue delaying the exchange rate as has been done in other times” since, as he indicated, “that effectiveness has been reduced.”
“We are at a real exchange rate level that does not contribute to overcoming a sustainable account surplus over time,” said Manoukian, who argued that “it threatens the need to accumulate international reserves.” The economist affirms, however, that on the other hand, the acceleration of the crawling peg “can contribute to the inflationary dynamics and consolidate a higher floor”. In this context, he says that the level of the exchange rate gap “is incompatible with a scenario of economic stability going forward and therefore requires continuing to bring the exchange rate to a level more similar to inflation, which is what we think the Government is trying”.
According to market sources indicated to Ámbito, during the moment in which the highest level of liquidation of the soybean dollar occurred, the rate of devaluation was 7% per month, but after that, in recent days, the Central Bank reduced to a level of 5%. Now they expect the monetary entity to try to keep up with the crawling peg “slightly below the interest rate” which currently stands at 6.12%.
Javier Marcus, Business Manager of Southern Trust, assures that “it is not possible” for the BCRA to delay the exchange rate more than it is now. One explanation is that today almost half of imports are already channeled through non-automatic licenses and if there is a higher level of expectation of devaluation, companies “will tend to set prices based on it.” Marcus considers that a greater precision of the monetary entity can be seen by setting special exchange rates by sectors in order to allow a greater entry of foreign currency, as happened with the soybean dollar.
In that senseVíctor Beker, director of the Center for Studies of the New Economy (CENE) of the University of Belgrano, presented the proposal to introduce a differential exchange rate for all exports of goods and services that do not make up the consumer basket, as a first step towards an exchange split that would allow the blue market to be legalized.
“It is time to set up a financial market through which operations of this nature would be channeled, including tourism, and in which foreign sales of goods and services that do not have an impact on the consumer basket would be settled. This would include some regional productions, as well as exports from the knowledge economy”, he pointed out.
Source: Ambito
David William is a talented author who has made a name for himself in the world of writing. He is a professional author who writes on a wide range of topics, from general interest to opinion news. David is currently working as a writer at 24 hours worlds where he brings his unique perspective and in-depth research to his articles, making them both informative and engaging.
