MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
As the dollar clamp tightens in Argentina, the greenback traded at 6.31 Pesos
The Argentine Central bank managed a ‘surplus’ of 600 million dollars last week The US dollar in Argentina soared on Monday and was trading in the “blue” or parallel market at 6.31 Pesos considerable higher than last Friday. The official rate climbed a modest half cent to 4.53 and 4.575 Pesos.
Argentina is short of foreign currency and needs the dollars to honour maturing debt and to pay for imports.
With the tightening of the clamp on the purchase of greenbacks and ahead of winter holidays in Argentina, buyers turned to the parallel market to purchase dollars to travel abroad according to operators.
Last week the Argentine Central bank said that residents could only purchase dollars in money exchange houses with cheques, debit account or bank transfer, meaning operations had to be done mostly in banks, --under the same conditions--, with no need for any optional trading.
However even abiding by the rules, the sale of dollars is a complicated process with no guarantee of obtaining the desired sum.
According to Buenos Aires money operators last week the Central Bank was able to hoard 600 million dollars from daily operations having totalled an estimate 8 billion dollars in the first six months of the year. “Monday ended with purchases of 90 million dollars”.
Several government officials have come out in public to argue that Argentina has its own currency, the Peso and there is no need to save or make real estate deals in US dollars. “Dollars are to pay debts and imports”, has been the preaching.
Even President Cristina Fernandez who has/had considerable sums of money in several banks has said she converted her dollars to Argentine Pesos.
However in spite of the clamp and attempts to catch every possible dollar, Argentines managed to exit 131 million dollars during the last week. In effect since the free purchase of dollars was blocked last October, savings accounts in greenbacks in Argentina have dropped from 14.9 billion to 8.9 billion, approximately 40%.
The data was provided by the Central bank. “The drop in foreign currency deposits in the private banking system continues and during the week reached a daily average of 25 million dollars”.
Last July 5 the Argentine central bank banned the sale of dollars for savings by “suspending access to the local money exchange market for the purchase of foreign assets with no declared specific purpose”.
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Read all commentsSo Yankeeboys prediction is coming true.
Jul 17th, 2012 - 06:55 am 0Also, didn't the Argentine government promise it was going to 'regulate' the blue market? Not doing very well are they?
I like this bit. “Even President Cristina Fernandez who has/had considerable sums of money in several banks has said she converted her dollars to Argentine Pesos.” Sure she did, I bet she ran right out and converted all her plentiful dollars into worthless pesos.
This bit has to be the biggest indicator that Argentina's people have lost faith in CFK's economic model: “However in spite of the clamp and attempts to catch every possible dollar, Argentines managed to exit 131 million dollars during the last week. In effect since the free purchase of dollars was blocked last October, savings accounts in greenbacks in Argentina have dropped from 14.9 billion to 8.9 billion, approximately 40%.”
That's a lot of money to exit the economy, especially when CFK has 'promised' to pay back debts owed to the Argentine people after the financial meltdown, 'promised' a pay increase for the military etc...
She is very good at promising things, but I doubt she has the capacity to deliver, unless of course she uses some of her own money. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Ignorant question perhaps but are Argentinians searched as they leave the country in order to prevent them from spending dollars or keeping them safe abroad? It seems pretty desperate.
Jul 17th, 2012 - 07:33 am 0@2 - Austral
Jul 17th, 2012 - 08:20 am 0Not only are they searched, but the Argentine authorities have dogs who are trained to sniff out dollars! In other countries the dogs are trained to sniff out drugs or weapons, but not in Argentina!
You couldn't make stuff like this up. But desperate people will always find a way to smuggle their hard earned cash to safer shores, especially as the Rgentine government has a history of stealing money from investors and savers to pay debt, issuing them with worthless bonds instead.
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