The Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Juan José Bahillo, ratified that producers who sold soybeans under the Export Increase Program (PIE) are exempt from restrictions to access the foreign exchange market and maintained that “beyond the transitory noises”, the joint work with the sector “remains unchanged”.
This was stated by Bahillo during a press conference in which presented the first vaccine strain in the world to combat Bovine Leukosis, based on research carried out by INTA and the University of Liege, Belgium.
The secretary said that from the portfolio “we are going to work beyond the transitory noises so that this program continues to be developed with the success that has been happening: We were over-achieving the expectations we had set at the beginning of the project with more than 8 million tons and US$4.5 billion and there are still two weeks to go.”
“Our vocation for dialogue and joint work remains unchanged”emphasized Bahillo, after which he added that they are thinking about incentive and promotion policies for small producers for the next campaign.
“We are working in this direction and it will be the Minister (of Economy, Sergio Massa) or the President (Alberto Fernández) who will announce it,” the secretary completed regarding the measures that are analyzed for small producers.
The counterpoint regarding the access of producers to the foreign exchange market occurred after the central bank ordered yesterday afternoon that “The economic agents that have sold soybeans under the Export Increase Program will not be able to access the foreign exchange market for purchases of foreign currency nor carry out operations with titles and securities with settlement in foreign currency.
After the dissemination of this measure, Bahillo, through his account on the social network Twitter, came out to clarify that producers were not included in the restriction.
After this precision, from the monetary organization they reported that the rule that prevents access to the purchase of foreign currency to those who market soybeans through the Export Increase Program “does not include producers who are human persons.”
This morning, in dialogue with Metro radio, Bahillo said that “Large companies, legal entities that intend to enter the Cash With Liquidation (CCL) or MEP market, cannot.”
The secretary assured that he learned of the communication from the Central Bank “yesterday, in the middle of the afternoon, a few minutes before” the agency made it known.
Bahillo maintained that with the first communication from the BCRA “producers were generated a change in the rules of the game”, which was later corrected with the second measure ordered by the monetary authority.
The secretary considered that “most (of the producers) sold to improve their working capital position” and attend “a demand for inputs and technology to invest”although also “some as an option were transferred to the MEP or CCL dollar and for this matter the Central Bank may have issued this circular.”
Bahillo also stressed that, like the previous rounds, today soybean marketing under the Export Increase Program continued at a good pace.
According to the Buenos Aires Cereal Exchange (BCBA), yesterday operations were registered for more than 600,000 tons and thus accumulated almost 9.5 million tons since last Monday, September 5, when the special exchange rate of $200 per dollar for the exports of the oilseed, which ends on September 30 next.
There will be no devaluation
For its part, the director of the Central Bank, Agustín D´Attellis, assured that the dollar access restrictions established for companies that market soybeans through the Export Increase Program are motivated in operations that generated a “devaluation pressure” and raised that, from some sectors, it seems that “they are constantly looking for a macroeconomic destabilization.”
“There comes a time when you say they’re constantly looking for macroeconomic destabilization that hurts the rest of society,” D’Attellis said in statements to Radio 10 and FM Urbana Play.
In this regard, he made it clear that The Government “will not give in to devaluation pressures” nor will it allow the big exporters “to go around with the dollar, widen the gap and transfer to prices, in a very complex context in inflationary terms.”
In this sense, he indicated that the decision to restrict access to the purchase of foreign exchange to those who sell soybeans through the Export Increase Program – with the exception of producers – was taken after detect operations with the dollar Cash With Settlement (CCL) that they were causing a increase in the exchange rate gap.
“They were pushing the gap a lot when precisely the opposite is being sought, for it to be reduced,” said the official, adding that “if they are going to continue generating pressure wherever they can, things are complicated.”
D’Attellis also recalled that he “carried out talks and agreements” at the time ofLaunch the Export Increase Program which led to the creation of “very attractive instruments to make placements in pesos” from the settled dollars.
“The instruments they requested were created as are sight accounts linked to the value of the official dollar for fear of a devaluation jump occurring,” he said.
In the same way, the director of the BCRA pointed out that they sought to boost placements in pesos through a positive interest rate and “instruments tied to inflation.”
“But when you look at the behavior afterwards, as the days go by and you see the operators that are behind, obviously those agreements were not respected and the restriction is necessary“, completed D’Attellis.
