Presidential spokesman admits illiquidity of dollars and says that $540 million were injected to solve the problem

Three weeks after an unusual demand for dollars, the presidential spokesman, Jorge Richter, admitted that the country suffers from an illiquidity of foreign currency, which according to him, is temporary. and that the Government injected $540 million to solve this problem, according to a report by the ABI agency.

According to the authority “Bolivia is currently facing an illiquidity of dollarsforeign currency for import and export operations”.

In this sense, according to the report by the state media, the authority maintained that this situation was addressed, “on the one hand, releasing the financial reserve before the banks, which has allowed them to dispose of around $us 240 million, a circumstantial measure with determined date; and number two, $300 million in foreign currency has also been released through Special Drawing Rights (DEG).

“Bolivia is going to pass this moment, it is going to solve this moment”, insisted the spokesman.

To meet the overdemand for dollars, the Central Bank of Bolivia (BCB) proceeded to sell the currency directly to the population. Between Monday 6 and Saturday 11 March, BCB sold $24 million to 298 people from La PazCochabamba and Santa Cruz.

The senior official said that the RINs that, between 2021 and 2022 reported an average of $us 4,496 million, closed the last administration with $us 3,800 million.

But of this amount, according to the latest BCB report, $372 million is in physical money. In 2014, the NIRs reached an all-time high, raking in more than $15 billion.

“A large part of the resources that were accumulating in the RIN were based on gas sales to Argentina and Brazil,” but this changed, the state authority said.