The Central Bank is still unable to recover the purchase of foreign currency in the official exchange market where demand persists in the face of lower supply due to the impact of the drought and a weak performance of the settlement through the agricultural dollar scheme.
The monetary entity obtained this Wednesday a positive balance of just US$1 million for its intervention in the single and free exchange market (MULC) despite the fact that the settlement through the agro dollar reached u$s98 million, showing an improvement compared to the two previous days.
There are exactly three weeks left until the soybean dollar ends 3 which offers a fixed exchange rate at $300. The scheme that started with the first operations on April 12 has not yet yielded the result expected by the government that it intended to achieve with this measure of US$5,000 million, but even half of that amount has not yet been reached.
Dollars: the BCRA buys less and less
The BCRA registered this Wednesday a positive net balance of US$1 million for its intervention in the MULC, which shows a slowdown compared to the favorable result of US$3 million from the previous session.
Thus, the monetary entity chained a buying streak for the fourth consecutive day, after it had ended in selling territory in the first rounds of May.
On the meager level of net purchases, market sources commented that It was “a day where there was a very strong demand from importers and US$40 million was allocated to pay for energy.”
BCRA today registered a positive balance of US$1 million in the MULC on a day with energy payments of US$40 million
In this way, the BCRA accumulates during this week net purchases for US$11 million, while it has totaled a sales balance of US$263 million so far in May, and adds a negative result for the year of around US$263 million. $3,234 million.
The analysts of PPI They highlighted that in the last rounds “the Central Bank modified leaving the selling side of the exchange market and obtained meager purchases” for US$2, US$7, US$3 million and US$1 million, but “the sustainability of these balances neutrals is questioned when it is observed that the liquidation of agriculture under the soybean/agro dollar”.
According to his vision, “thinking of the fourteen days that separate us from the expiration of the soybean dollar 3 (05/31), It is difficult to imagine that a repression of the demand that allows the BCRA to continue leaving neutral is maintained, so that sales could return at any time”.
Agricultural dollar: liquidation accelerated
Gustavo Quintana, operator of Pr Cambios, indicated that the Exporter Increase Program III today contributed US$98,167 million, allowing the monetary authority to write down the fourth consecutive round with balances in favor, always of small amounts but temporarily interrupting the sequence of negative results due to market regulation”.
This amount implies an acceleration compared to the poor contribution of foreign currency that the field had made under the agricultural dollar scheme the two previous days, when US$35.35 million and US$54.11 million were liquidated.
The Economist Gabriel Caamanothrough his Twitter account, emphasized: “We came from two days with PIE at just over US$40 million and with the BCRA buying coins. Today the PIE was close to US$100 million and continued buying 3 currencies. We are in a process zero deficit of the official exchange market”.
The BCRA finds it difficult to add reserves, and the net stock is already negative at US$1,000 million
And it is that in a critical context where net reserves are negative by around US$1,000 million, and liquid reserves (discounting gold and SDRs) are around between -6,600 and -7,000 million, analysts put the magnifying glass on the low percentage withholding that the BCRA achieves from the liquidated amount, which is barely 14%.
And it is that Since the implementation of the agricultural dollar, the amount settled is about US$2,218 millionwhile the BCRA’s net purchases were US$290 million.
The specialist Salvador Vitelli He points out that the current soybean dollar 3 is the one with the lowest contribution compared to the two previous editions, seen from the impact on reserves. In the first “soybean dollar”, executed in September last year, the BCRA was able to pocket 65% of the currencies contributed by the farmers and the cereal companies, while in the second tranche, of December 2022, the entity retained 74%.
The amount obtained so far with three weeks to go before the end of the soybean dollar 3 does not even reach half of the US$5 billion that the government intended to raise at this stage to strengthen the weak reserves.
Agricultural dollar: will there be changes to the scheme?
Against this background, in PPI they raised that “The current stagnation of the exchange market indicates that the novelties must come from new incentives that accelerate the offer, making it obvious at this point that at the exchange rate of $300 soybean producers are not available to sell.”
“According to the Rosario Stock Exchange, the accumulated liquidation of this soybean dollar barely reaches 3.82 million tons compared to 5.17 million in the second edition and 13.27 in the first. The reluctance of the farmers to sell remains more evident when considering that the 7 million ton carry from the previous campaign already includes 8.3 million harvested from the current campaign, leaving a potential of 15.3 million, of which barely 25% was liquidated,” they specified.
In the market they expect changes in the scheme of the agricultural dollar before meager liquidation
In this context, in PPI they indicated that “for now, the low sale of soybeans has been partially offset by the sale of low agricultural dollars” of 0.6 million tons of sunflower (USD 288 million), 0.45 million of barley ( US$118 million) and 0.2 million of sorghum (US$47 million)”.
“For now, while the announcement of a new soybean dollar is waiting, net reserves closed on Tuesday at an estimated -u$s1,008 million and there is nothing to suggest that they can be recomposed,” they concluded.
