The gross international reserves of the Central Bank (BCRA) fell by US$559 million on Tuesdayas a result of a scheduled payment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Following this outflow of foreign currency, the monetary authority’s coffers reached their lowest level in two and a half months.
According to official sources confirmed to Ambitduring this day US$642 million left the monetary authority to meet debt obligations that the country has with the main international credit organization.
In the first days of the month, the Treasury had already had to pay nearly US$2 billion in principal and interest on the debt to private bondholders.
Faced with these commitments, which could not be offset by dollar inflows from exports or new financing, the current stock of reserves is located at US$27.613 million, the lowest figure since April 30.
BCRA fails to accumulate reserves and loses firepower to intervene in the CCL
In parallel, the BCRA closed its intervention in the official market with a net sales of US$3 million, which was the first negative balance in seven trading sessions.
Thus, the entity led by Santiago Bausili loses firepower to intervene in financial exchange rates and thus reduce the gap (and inflationary pressures).
It is worth remembering that over the weekend the Government announced that The monetary authority will begin to absorb the equivalent of the pesos it issues each time it buys foreign currency on the official market, through the sale of dollars in the CCL.
On Monday, the entity led by Santiago Bausili bought US$36 million, so in order to sterilize the pesos issued by that operation, it had to sell CCL in the dollar market about US$25.2 million.
With this action, the Government also intends to Increase the supply of financial dollars to lower their price, narrow the gap and improve the conditions for the exit from the currency controls in the future.
The Ministry of Economy anticipated that the “sterilization” of pesos from sales in the CCL will be approximately $2.5 billion, which with the current gap would imply an outflow of reserves of approximately US$1.9 billion.
Source: Ambito
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