Happens that Argentine Mint (CMA)the public company dedicated to the banknote printingrecently acquired a German machine that is being assembled and that allows double-sided printing, as opposed to how it is currently done, which is one side at a time.
“That will greatly speed up the times and the printing capacity of the entity, so it would give it the possibility of providing even to other central banks of the world”, points out an expert source in monetary politics to Ambit.
In fact, as this medium learned, there were conversations with Paraguay, for example, to provide tickets to that country. However, it is still an incipient project because the double-sided emission machine mentioned is not in operation yet. But, in a few months, it will be and Argentina will have the necessary tools to do so.
New tickets: what about your departure?
Likewise, this new equipment could be used to complete this year the printing of the family of the new banknotes “Heroines and heroes of the Homeland”, which is incomplete for now. Let’s remember that, in July of this year, the $1,000 one already hit the streets, with the image of San Martín. But, as announced months ago by the Central Bank (BCRA)the $200 one still needs to come out, with the image of Martín Miguel de Güemes and Juana Azurduy, and María Remedios del Valle will join Manuel Belgrano in the $500 one, since the latter is the figure that illustrates the first design of that paper.
The new designs will not replace the previous ones, but will coexist for some time and the replacement process will be done gradually as the old ones go out of circulation due to wear.
The issuance and circulation It is scheduled for this year, although there are only a few and very complex months ahead, given the electoral context. This implies that they could take a while, and, without the need to apply extensions to the signed contracts, given that, according to what this outlet was able to learn, the period established for their issuance is between July 2023 and April 2024.
“The logical thing would be for them to be printed this year to complete the family as announcedespecially given the fact that they are tickets of low denomination that will coexist with the existing designs up to now and do not require large amounts of money to put them into circulation”, says a source specialized in the subject.
In that case, the new double sided printing machine could help speed up the departure times within what was agreed between Exchange housein charge of its president Ángel Mario Elettore, and BCRAentity chaired by Miguel Pesce.
New ticket costs
He cost of printing new banknotes it is around US$100 per thousand, according to official data. Those of Eva Perón, Martín de Güemes and Juana Azurduy, and that of Del Valle and Belgrano have a production value of US$99 per thousand, and that of San Martín, US$120.33.
It should be noted that the contracts between the BCRA and Mint are expressed in Dollars, but they are paid in pesosusing for its conversion the seller-type closing parity published in Banco Nación on the last day prior to the effective payment date.
The totality of the ticket provision contracts finished are made with the Exchange house. However, as on other occasions, it is planned to carry out partial subcontracting of manufacturing processes that exceed the installed capacity of its plant, for which it has authorization from the BCRA. Starting to print them all locally and doing it faster could help reduce the cost of issuance.
Quality of local banknotes
The last steps of CMA seem to show that it is focused on its commitment to the development of the monetary politics local, given that, in addition to the new machine acquired, the fact that it obtained the certifications in the ISO 37.001 Anti-bribery and ISO 37.301 Compliance standards is added, and it became the only Exchange house worldwide in certifying both standards, which aim at the identification and reduction of risks,
Also, the San Martín ticket was highlighted at the regional level for its security measures. And it is that it received recognition as the best regional ticket of 2023 within the framework of the High Security Printing Conference (High Security Printing), which was carried out a few months ago in Chile.
However, it is no less true that there was much criticism of the launch of the new banknotes because many voices consider that, instead of replacing the designs that already exist, others with a higher denomination would have to be issuedsuch as one of $5,000 and $10,000, given the prevailing strong inflation, which results in a high nominal value of the economy.
Despite the repeated pressures from the market in this sense and, mainly, from the banks, which complain about the costs and logistical difficulties caused by the low nominal value of the bills (since the highest is $2,000 and is equivalent to a little less than US$3.5 in the blue market), the Government is reluctant to move in this direction.
Source: Ambito
