Precisely, the intention of the Palacio de Hacienda is clear the maturities for the next few months by refinancing the liabilities for after the elections decompressing in this way the pressures on the dollar. The government would offer a menu of three bonuses adjusted for CER and Duals for maturities from March to June. The official proposal contemplates postpone maturities to August and October 2024 and March 2025. In exchange, the banks would be asking to participate in the exchange, an executable put at a rate 50 basis points above the previous round, according to information that has circulated in the market.
Precisely this Monday at noon, the main representatives of the banks and insurance companies will hold a meeting with the Secretary of Finance, Setti with the intention of concluding the agreement that, according to what they hope in the Ministry of Economy, will allow the debt maturities to be cleared in pesos that accumulate in the coming months.
Bookings
At the same time, the economic team faces a complex situation in terms of reserves. Private calculations place the net reserves held by the Central Bank at around USD 3,000 million. Impacted by the drought, the agricultural sector – the main source of dollars – has reduced its exports so far this year. Last February this sector liquidated only USD 700 million, 70% less than the income of the same month of 2022.
Drop
In the first two months of the year, net international reserves decreased by USD 3.3 billion, according to the calculations of the consultancy pxq. In January, the main reason for the fall in reserves was interest payments to private creditors, while last month the net sale of foreign currency to the private sector generated output of almost USD 900 million.
In order to meet the goal of net international reserves agreed for the first quarter of the year, the BCRA should accumulate USD 3.7 billion net during the current monthmaintains the consultancy that runs Emanuel Alvarez Agis.
To ponder the difficulty of reaching this objective, the report recalls that the March with the best result for the BCRA in the exchange market was in that month of 2007, when it bought USD 1,627 million net, less than half of what is needed now to meet the goal.
The proposal that the Argentine negotiators bring to the IMF is that the quarterly reserve targets are not fixed, but variables based on aspects that affect the exportable balance of the country.
Thus, they aim to contemplate the evolution of the second-rate soybean and corn harvest – here the impact of the drought will have to be determined – as well as the new restriction derived from the suspension of chicken exports due to avian flu (some USD 330 million).
News from Washington indicates that in recent weeks there have been discussions between the IMF and Argentina over some measures adopted by the government.
They maintain that the organism that conducts Kristalina Georgieva He questioned the use of the reserve for the purchase of bonds as well as the delay in rate adjustments. Added to this was the recent approval of the pension moratorium, a measure that the Fund had expressly requested to be avoided. According to the calculations of the Congressional Budget Office, in the first year of the measure it will imply an additional spending of 0.27% of GDP (against the 1.9% committed primary deficit).
The increase in the fiscal deficit in January also caused concern, but the latest data shows that Massa’s driving counts in favor with a new cut in expenditures last month. In the fourth week of February, real primary spending fell 35.1% compared to the same week in January, and 11.3% from a year agoaccording to the monitoring carried out by the Analytica consultancy.
Source: Ambito
