Banks and exchange houses authorized by the Central Bank (BCRA) are working to implement the new mechanism that enables foreign tourists to exchange their currencies at the MEP Dollar exchange rate for up to US$5,000, with the aim of putting it into operation as soon as possible. possible and even with the possibility of having it ready this Monday.
This is how sources from different private and public financial entities confirmed to Télam that, they assured, they hope to have everything ready “as soon as possible, available in the next few days” and, in some cases, maintain that “everything should be ready on Monday.”
Last Thursday, the Central Bank approved Communication “A” 7551, which enables foreign tourists to exchange currency for an amount of up to US$5,000 at a MEP Dollar exchange rate.
The objective of the monetary authority, sources from the entity explained to Télam, is that foreign tourists can go to the bank or exchange house with their dollars in cash and can exchange them for pesos at a MEP exchange rate, which on Friday closed in $315.32.
About one and a half million tourists visited Argentina and spent some US$ 1,400 million so far in 2022 from Brazil (22%), Uruguay (17%), Chile (11%), the United States (10%), Paraguay (10%) and Spain (4.6%), as the main origins, according to data from the Ministry of Tourism and Sports.
However, barely US$163 million entered through the official foreign exchange market between January and May, so the BCRA was only able to capture a small portion of that flow since the vast majority exchange their money in cash through the illegal market. .
“Today, due to the exchange rate gap, many of those dollars do not enter” the formal system, the Minister of Tourism and Sports, Matías Lammens, said last week after participating in a cabinet meeting at Government House.
Lammens stressed that “receptive tourism is recovering with great vigor” and that Argentina “needs the dollars that these tourists bring.”
With a gap of almost 150% between the financial prices ($315 for the MEP and $326 for the CCL) and the wholesale dollar exchange rate ($130), the Government wants the dollars that foreign tourists change in the informal market are channeled through the financial market.
To do this, banks and exchange houses must offer tourists -after signing an affidavit and presenting a document proving their nationality- a price that is referenced to the value of the MEP dollar, which last Friday closed at $315. .32 per unit.
“The currency exchange is referenced because the tourist does not carry out the operation of buying securities and selling with settlement in foreign currency. The tourist arrives and leaves, they do not stay to wait for that operation to be carried out. The exchange house or the The bank then has to sell those dollars in the MEP and has two days to do so,” sources from the BCRA explained to Télam.
For the director of the Analytica consultancy, Claudio Caprarulo, although “it is still necessary to know how its implementation will be and the volume that it can capture”, the measure is “a good sign as it seeks to get the dollars into the registered sector of the economy”, although he pointed out that “at first impression, the effect it may have seems marginal”.
On the other hand, he analyzed that in order to be calm it is necessary to “support the plan proposed by (Economy Minister Silvina) Batakis in reference to reducing the fiscal deficit and bringing certainty regarding the sustainability of the debt in pesos.”
Another of the measures adopted by the BCRA to avoid further losses of reserves was to set new limits to access the foreign exchange market, both for companies and individuals.
These included the holding of up to US$100,000 in Argentine Deposit Certificates (Cedears) -securities that are listed in pesos and that replicate the value of shares of companies that operate in foreign markets- to access the purchase of dollars and, also, the holding of cryptocurrencies purchased with pesos.
Nicolás Pertierra, chief economist at the Center for Economic and Social Studies Scalabrini Ortiz (CESO), expressed his doubts as to whether these measures “will result in reducing the gap or increasing reserves in general.”
“I think that, administratively, it is not very practical for tourists to go to a foreign exchange office and fill out an affidavit. Also, it depends on the price of the blue dollar,” he said.
In that sense, he said that in the short term what the Government should do is “find a way to obtain dollars and the only sector that can contribute that in the short term is the agricultural sector.”
“There are two alternatives: a differential exchange rate or a reduction in withholdings. The differential exchange rate does not seem like a good idea to me, because later it is very difficult to go back. Therefore, it seems to me that the measure has to be a reduction in the temporary withholdings, for 20 or 30 days, until energy imports drop, for example,” Pertierra said.
Last Thursday, from the Central Bank they rejected the possibility of enabling a differentiated exchange rate so that agriculture can liquidate part of the harvest that it has saved (close to US$ 20,000 according to President Alberto Fernández) and attributed those versions to speculation aimed at force the foreign exchange market by restricting the supply of foreign currency.
“It is a great nonsense about the dollar for agriculture, there is nothing like that,” they told Télam when leaving the crossroads of notes published on various portals with versions about a special dollar for producers and cereal companies with a price between 30% and 40% at the official exchange rate.
“No measure is evaluated that implies improving this exchange rate for agriculture. It is part of a speculation aimed at forcing the foreign exchange market by restricting the supply of foreign exchange,” the sources stressed.
