The improvement that the foreign trade linked to the services sector since the end of last year did not last long, since last February it once again had a deficit of more than millions of dollars. It is worth remembering that the previous month even registered the first surplus since April 2012, of US$84 million.
The latest data from Central Bank (BCRA) clearly show this reversal of the balance of the “Services” account of the Exchange Balance, which registered a deficit of US$232 million in February. Although it is significantly lower than a year ago – 64% – it interrupts two consecutive months of improvement (in December it collapsed to only US$20 million).
The main architects of the deficit result were the net payments for Trips, tickets and other card payments for US$266 million and those linked to Other services for US$105 million followed by Freight and insurance for US$42 million.
While on the net income side, those associated with Professional and technical business services for US$181 million, which helped temper the negative result of the sector.
In this regard, the BCRA clarifies that under the framework of the Export Increase Program (PIE), income from services is recorded through the securities market, which does not appear in the statistics of the exchange market and exchange balance because no registration is made in the Information Regime of Exchange Operations. Of course there is an exception, it is those collections that enter and are deposited in local accounts in foreign currency for subsequent settlement in the securities market, which are registered as exchange operations, which have no net effect on the securities market. changes.
When considering the effects of the regulatory changes, it is also worth highlighting the increase in gross income per Trips and tickets which increased 79% year-on-year to a total of US$226 million. These income occur within the framework of Communication “A” 7630 of the BCRA, which excluded from the settlement requirement in the exchange market the income of funds with non-resident cards for charges for tourist services and for passenger transportation, which It allows recipients to apply a higher exchange rate to card consumption in the country by non-resident tourists.
Exchange Balance: interest payments on debts
The other concepts that play in the sector balance are operations as primary income, which represented a net outflow of US$1,263 million, mainly due to net interest payments of US$1,253 million. While the gross payments of interest from the Government and the BCRA totaled payments of US$1,153 million, of which US$776 million corresponded to interest payments to the International Monetary Fund (586 million SDR), US$269 million to other government interest payments and US$108 million to interest payments to international organizations (excluding the IMF), while the private sector made gross transfers of US$130 million. Additionally, gross outflows of profits, dividends and other income abroad amounted to US$10 million. For their part, secondary income operations showed a surplus result of US$13 million.
The balance of the first two months shows a deficit of almost US$150 million when a year ago it totaled close to US$1,380 million. The most notable thing in the bimonthly balance is the drop in gross expenses, especially in Freight and Insurance, which went from US$675 million in 2023 to US$91 million this year (-87% year-on-year), followed by those linked to Professional Services and technical with a decrease of 51% year-on-year to $383 million and Travel, tickets and cards of 24% to $952 million.
Source: Ambito
