A letter, sent last Friday to its clients, by a shipping company specialized in foreign trade operations, after the publication of communications from the BCRA alerts companies about alleged delays in freight operations related to imports and exports.
The letter from the company to which Iprofesional agreed refers to Communication A 7746 from the BCRA published last Thursday in reference to “access to the exchange market for the payment of services to counterparties linked abroad”
Then it mentions that: “Until the interconsultations for explanatory notes and instrumentation of these are finished, payments for Import and Export operations will be suspended and payments received will be charged as payments on account in (ARS Pesos) once the collections have been established”.
It also states that: “for any questions or queries, we request that you kindly contact our Consumer Service department” and adds an email for customers to communicate.
At the end of the letter details: “we will remain vigilant and we are trying to regularize the collection process as soon as possible.”
Hard paper directed to Pesce, Massa and Tombolini
On the other hand, the Center for Navigators sent a very hard letter addressed to the president of the BCRA Miguel Pesce, the Minister of Economy Sergio Massa and the Secretary of Commerce Matias Tombolini accusing the BCRA of ignoring the current standards in global maritime transport and demanded from the board of directors “the immediate modification of Communication A 7746 in order to allow Maritime Agencies freely make the remittances corresponding to the payments of freight and invoiced services for the amount and order of Arnadores in accordance with the applicable exchange regulations without these being subject to the prior and obligatory fulfillment of any term”.
It also states that “the deferral of payments ordered by the BCRA as a result of its administration of scarce currencies can cause in a short period of time that not even a “flat water carrier” arrive in the country, a concept widely applied in maritime trade.
The Center for Navigators explains that: “the BCRA is unaware that the ships that come to Argentina deviate from the conventional lines of traffic to reach ports with a low volume of cargo and that sometimes they do not even have sufficient draft and in those circumstances It is not understood that the BCRA wants to defer payments”.
It also warns the BCRA that “the interests of the actors that make up the local logistics chain are being harmed, turning Argentina into a kind of Dirty Port with loss of production, work and millions of foreign currency income for all Argentines for demanding collection offshore freight (out of the country)”.
The Center for Navigators accused the BCRA of ignoring the standards in force in global maritime transport
The text also refers to Communication A 7746 from the BCRA that blocks the operation of maritime agencies and reproaches the authorities for already alerting the Association of Banks of Argentina on the subject last year.
How the companies took the measure
The owner of one of the leading local companies in the market explained to Iprofesional that many multinational companies such as airlines and shipping companies will be greatly affected by these measures and for us it is an impossible situation to handle due to the current exchange rate uncertainty.”
The advance of greater exchange restrictions on foreign trade operations was confirmed in the financial market late Thursday afternoon after the BCRA issued communications A 7746, which is a kind of enlarged trap for the payment of freight services and the A7747 that is complementary to the previous one.
The latter is a much more demanding request for information than the one that existed previously, which requests the CUIT number, amount and operation code, reason, and information on whether the supplier is a counterparty linked to another exporting or importing company linked to potential importers to be able to access the official single exchange market (MULC).
These are measures that make it mandatory to finance the payment of the import of professional services and freight between related companies. They were anticipated by Iprofesional on April 7 last.
In addition, prior authorization was provided for the payment of interest on intra-company debt. All this together represents a postponement of payments in foreign currency for US$2,000 million until the end of the year.
The BCRA also explained that in the event that the creditor is a counterparty linked to the debtor, prior authorization will be required until the end of the year to access the exchange market to pay interest services on commercial debts for imports of goods and services and/or or financial loans abroad.
In addition, the BCRA board authorized companies to make remunerated deposits in official dollars for the amount in pesos equivalent to the unpaid interest or the use of own available currencies that apply to the payment of commitments when the creditor is a related counterparty. .
The concrete thing is that last Friday these types of operations were paralyzed very early because the AFIP validator did not work and many freight companies, customs brokers and banks were waiting for the responses of the foreign trade departments and the legal area. to know how they should operate.
The week that begins will be very conditioned also due to many versions and rumors that spread like wildfire in different meetings this weekend of businessmen related to foreign trade and the environment of finance.
Early Friday morning before the opening of the markets there was an alert signal that worried the officials of the Ministry of Economy of the BCRA.
devaluation rumors
A report from a financial consultancy, written in English, alerted its clients to the possibility of a devaluation of the peso against the dollar or an exchange jump of 50% as of Monday and also expressed that the question at the local level was whether the Minister of Economy Sergio Massa would continue in office after the devaluation if it occurred.
This would be one of the reasons why in the last hours before the markets closed the value of the CCL dollar reached a record of 451 pesos to the MEP dollar at 435 pesos with a BCRA that increased the interest rate from 78 to 81% per year and accelerated the rate of devaluation of the peso in the official free and single exchange market (MULC) to a value of 7 percent per month and launched new measures to expand the exchange rate.
The report from that consultancy is not far from what analysts from banks and local consultancies and from Wall Street have informed their clients and where they warn of various concerns.
What was surprising in the financial market and on Wall Street was that the Ministry of Economy would initiate legal action against that financial company and would also ask the National Securities Commission (CNV) to intervene. The brokerage house or AlyC apologized through a statement.
It should be noted that the report from that financial company indicated that it was very likely that President Alberto Fernández would announce the resignation of his re-election and that the BCRA would not allow any import or export company to access the exchange market and that operations would resume. next monday or tuesday.
The rumors about a new economic plan drawn up by the resigned Antonio Aracre and the possibility that Sergio Massa will leave the Ministry of Economy began to dissipate late on Friday after a difficult day on Thursday when, through two photos, the government gave to know that Massa met first in Olivos with the president Alberto Fernández and then with the president of the BCRA Miguel Ángel Pesse.
In this last meeting, both reportedly agreed that a strong exchange rate adjustment is not necessary for now. “Not even crazy Sergio is going to do a devaluation of the peso before doing that, he’s leaving,” sources close to the minister said late Friday in response to inquiries from businessmen and bankers.
The exchange rate run that began on March 27, the day after Mauricio Macri announced that he would not be a presidential candidate in the next elections, led the value of the parallel dollar from 385 to 442 pesos and the country risk to a new record of 2,600 points.
The problem that aggravates the lack of dollars in the economy is that no exporter sells his dollars at the official dollar price
The step after an exchange run is a bank run that begins with a drop in dollar deposits that leave the local financial system and deposits in pesos are transformed into dollars and also leave the financial system.
The first has already started since the beginning of April and the second is more contained by the exchange rate that makes it more difficult to transform these pesos into dollars and remove them from the financial system.
The government continues to opt for the more complex situation, which is the increase in restrictions to obtain dollars at the official exchange rate instead of devaluing the peso by a significant magnitude.
In that direction are the measures announced by the BCRA last Thursday with which the monetary authority would seek to save some 2,000 million dollars.
The problem that aggravates the lack of dollars in the economy is that at the price of the official dollar no exporter sells their dollars and everyone wants to buy waiting for the future devaluation that will surely come at some point.
The other problem is that as the parallel dollar and alternative financiers rise, the advantage of agricultural exporters and regional economies to settle at a differential exchange rate like the Agro dollar at 300 pesos is significantly reduced.
It is likely that at the beginning of this week the new measures will stop a large part of the import operations because customs brokers and importers are still trying to adapt to the new regulations.
