The Central deepened the trickle for intervention in financial dollars

Economy Minister Sergio Massa’s trip to China has in his sights the expansion of the Chinese swap, which is currently in use for 5 billion dollars, and obtains a similar tool that allows trade with Brazil without using BCRA currencies.

“The expansion that we are negotiating is to increase the capacity of use within 18,000, not to expand the swap,” they detailed from the Palacio de Hacienda.

However, the question is the lack of dollars in the arcades of the Central that are in negative territory for some US$ 1,700 million, in the midst of the renegotiation with the Fund that the Government expects to have closed in June, the month for which the The monetary entity must post a positive balance of around US$ 9 billion to meet the goal of net international reserves for the second quarter of 2023.

If approved by the international organization, the remaining disbursements of the year would be advanced, equivalent to some 10,788 million dollars.

If so, it would be the only way to achieve the goal with the IMF in the sixth month of the year, with the exception that it would have to stop intervening in the MULC, stop paying for imports and any other outflow of BCRA currencies; as well as payments of capital maturities with the Monetary Fund can be canceled, which are US$ 5,379 million until August and US$ 9,897 million until December.

Regarding this last point, according to calculations by the economist Fernando Marull, during the administration of President Alberto Fernández only 825 million net were paid to the Monetary Fund, that is, with their own dollars. All disbursements were used to cancel debt with the multilateral organization.

The bleeding of the Central is so worrying that so far this year more than 6.500 million dollars of reserves have been released, this being the worst start to the year for a year with exchange rate stocks and the second worst since at least 2003.

So far this year, the BCRA has shown a negative balance of about US$2.8 billion due to its interventions in the MULC, together with the recent interventions in the financial dollar market between May 5 and 18, about US$1,100. million that are found under the “Others” heading in the balance sheet of the Central and that also includes other types of similar operations.

Added to the foreign trade deficit that left him a red for another US $ 1,600 million. At this point, we must remember the impact of the drought for some US$ 20 billion, which would be equivalent to about five months of payment for imports.

“On the other hand, the dollars used in the sovereign debt repurchases in the first quarter had a negative influence. And the debt maturities faced by the Nation, some provinces and the private sector”, Santiago Manoukian, Ecolatina’s economic adviser, explained to PROFIL.

“Also, more recently the activation of a tranche of the currency swap with China began to operate, which makes you drop the gross,” Manoukian added.

Finally, US$ 1,000 million came from private sector deposits, which eliminated the accounting of the Central’s gross reserves, according to the economist and head of research at Romano Group, Salvador Vitelli.