This is the highest amount in the last 11 months, that is, since October 2019.
The Central Bank (BCRA) closed the month in which it instituted an unpublished version of the stocks (due to the restrictiveness) with a loss of reserves greater than US $ 1.6 billion due to interventions on the exchange market to maintain the tiring rate of adjustment that seeks to give the official exchange rate. This is the highest amount in the last 11 months, that is, since October 2019.
That month, in which the presidential election was defined, the entity had sacrificed more than US $ 4.1 billion , clearly in a context of marked uncertainty due to the impact that this compulsa could have and of the insignificant restrictions considered with the one that came into force in the last fortnight. At the time, there was already a stocks but people were allowed to buy up to US $ 10,000 per month, a quota that would be cut 98% precisely one month later.
The curious thing about the case is that it is calculated that between 45% and 50% of the total loss of reserves for the month (about US $ 700 to 750 million) the BCRA registered it after having blocked access to the foreign exchange market for eight wheels. people and having cut the sale to many companies to meet the payment of financial debts.
The data from August are revealing in this regard: the volume of foreign currency demanded to meet the payment of imports (despite the acute recession and the fall in economic activity) was greater in that month than in August 2019: it reached US $ 3,709 million In August, 27.5% more than in the same month of 2019 and 51% was concentrated in the sectors of “Chemical, Rubber and Plastic Industry”, “Commerce”, “Automotive Industry” and “Machinery and Equipment”.
In addition, the payment of imports registered by the BCRA does not match the volume of imports reported by the trade balance, since while the former rose 27% year-on-year during that same month, the imports registered by the INDEC contracted 20.4% due to the recession.
This phenomenon was exacerbated with the exchange rate gap flying through the air due to the impact that this had on devaluation expectations. And it did more in recent days when, with the latest measures and their increasingly restricted interpretation of them, the BCRA exposed the “reserve crisis”, which accelerated what operators describe as the “race to get to the dollar.” Source: THE NATION