The work indicated that “the high cancellation of floating debt, in Januarywould grant room for action to meet the goal”, but points out that, during the first month of this year, the fiscal deficit was $204,000 million, which represents 0.12% of GDP.
Revenues fell again in real terms (-3.2%) during January: now without a remnant of the “soybean dollar”, with lower wheat exports due to the drought and with activity receding slightly.
This is the “worst record for this month in recent years”, according to the consultant, and explained that “the bad result in January makes it more difficult to meet the first goal of 2023”, since they indicated that the deficit corresponding to those 31 days consumed practically half of the margin allowed by the IMF and seasonality will play against it in February and March.
CEPA stressed that the fiscal convergence it stopped in January as a result of a reduction in income in real terms and an increase in some expense items, but mainly as a result of the cancellation of floating debt (almost $350 billion), which had increased in December.
Indeed, it specified that, “in order to comply with the IMF targetit is estimated that the Government will have to reduce the base scenario deficit by $360,000 million between February and March, which could be achieved by returning to the floating debt limit allowed by the IMF (of around $390,000 million)”.
Source: Ambito
