The Central Bank’s board of directors will approve on Thursday a complementary rule to unlock the soybean dollar operation, for which there were no settlements yesterday either. This is the resolution of the entity that will allow exporters to enter the dollars for the pre-financing of their sales, without the need to settle within a period of 180 days.
The measure minimizes the risk for exporters since, in normal situations, cereal companies enter the currencies to buy the grains and, as they buy them, they sell the dollars to get the pesos and pay the producer. The maximum period allowed to comply with this entire process is 5 days. In other words, in the usual scheme, when exporters deposit the pre-financing dollars, they have less than a week to convert them into pesos and pay the producer in that currency.
With the extension of the term that will be approved by the BCRA board, the cereal companies will have more time to wait for the producer to sell them their harvest.
the same norm was in force during the two previous editions of the soybean dollar, in September and December of last year, even though the private sector did not make much use of them. In these instances, the dollars received were quickly liquidated in the market to pay producers who did not wait to sell to take advantage of the window of opportunity of the preferential exchange rate. That window is, on this occasion, somewhat wider, since the incentive will be in force until the end of next month.
But the truth is that the market is already two days late despite the publication of the DNU that enables the exchange rate to $300 and, despite that, the monetary authority accumulated a negative balance of USD 97 million in the last two wheels, after selling USD 99 million yesterday and buying USD 2 million today.
After certain doubts regarding the fine print of the DNU published on Monday, which forced the Government to issue a clarification today, sources from the export sector pointed to the lack of BCRA regulations, even when it does not have a major operational impact. Within the framework of company processes, however, they are key regulations since they aim to ensure that the financial managers of the companies have the risks covered. “Without this option, the financial manager does not enter the dollars until he has confirmed when he is going to sell them to pay the producers,” official sources explained.
In any case, the implementation of the operation to start the liquidation of the soybean dollar seems more delayed than in previous opportunities. The announcement by the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, was made last Wednesday and DNU 194/23, which ordered the opening of the accounts dollar linked mandatory to prove the proceeds from the sale of the export increase program, in addition to implementing the validity of the scheme was published on Monday, after the Easter holiday. The opening of these new accounts added an additional procedure and is what would have delayed the full implementation of the measure.
As of the decree, the BCRA instructed financial entities through Communication B12511 on how to accredit these funds. But the opening of the accounts provided for in the decree implies administrative procedures that could only be carried out as of this Monday, as of the validity of the program.
Based on estimates from the private sector, which indicate that the accounts will be operational this week, the economic team hopes that sales within the export program will begin to reflect quickly.
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