MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Argentine international reserves fall below the 40bn dollars benchmark, 8% so far this year
The Central bank is losing reserves faster than expected Argentina’s Central bank international reserves have fallen below the 40bn dollars benchmark, which is the lowest in six years, according to the bank’s official data. So far this year the drain has been 3.48bn dollars and 12.84bn from the record 52.6bn of January 2011.
But JPMorgan-Chase & Co anticipates they will drop further, to 37.5bn as capital controls erode the country’s trade balance. The estimate of a 5.5bn decline in central bank funds this year assumes that capital controls will prevent a pickup in private-sector outflows.
This means Argentina’s international reserves loss was 8% this year and 24.4% in the last two years with a sustained decline tendency. The latest data took into account the fall of the international price of gold and payment, capital and interest, of locals bonds.
“Capital controls threaten to exert an adverse toll on expectations of economic performance” JPMorgan analysts including New York-based Vladimir Werning wrote in an e-mailed research report.
Argentina’s trade balance surplus will be 9.6bn this year, according to JPMorgan, down from a previous estimate of 11.6bn.
JPMorgan cut its 2013 “agro bonus” forecast, the estimated increase in agriculture-related exports, to 4.8bn from 6.7bn. It projected soy crop output of 45 million tons, down from a prior estimate of 51.5 million tons. The bank raised its corn output estimate for this year to 25 million tons from 24 million tons.
YPF the oil company that the Argentine government seized in April 2012, as projected to import 600 million dollars worth of fuel this year.
On Thursday at the end of foreign exchange trading in Buenos Aires, the official price of the US dollar was unchanged at 5.11 Pesos (buying price) and 5.165 Pesos (selling price) while the so called “blue” dollar traded at 8.63 pesos (buying price) and 8.66 Pesos (selling price).
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Read all comments“”“So far this year the drain has been 3.48bn dollars and 12.84bn from the record 52.6bn of January 2011.”“”
Apr 19th, 2013 - 07:43 am 0thats a lot of penthouse suites in New York & elsewhere... or does she like shoes.. handbags...?
certainly a chunk of that has gone directly into the pockets of ReichsChancelor Kirchner , family & cronies.
Down & down it goes,
Apr 19th, 2013 - 09:09 am 0Where it stops, nobody knows.
TWIMC
Apr 19th, 2013 - 09:24 am 0Let’s see…..
1) The Argentinean Central Bank has, as today 19/04/2013, some 40,000,000,000 dollars in their safe.
That’s 35,000,000,000 dollars MORE than it had in 2003, when the first Kirchner was elected.
All of it ”REAL MONEY” in the Bank………..
2) This ”REAL MONEY” is being used to continue our policy of External Debt Reduction.
The Argentinean External Debt was about 150% of our GDP in 2003.
Today, ten years after, it's been reduced to about 27%................
3) During the next couple of months, the export taxes on the 2012/13 bumper crop will yield some 16,000,000,000 dollars into the State coffers.
Customarily, between 1/3 and 1/2 of those monies end in the Central Bank as reserves.
More than enough to stabilize the situation and reduce further our External indebtedness paying with “REAL MONEY”……..
4) All these whilst inflation is being contained by some “heterodox methods”, the per capita consumption of beef is gone up some 10% during the last months and the IMF own economists predict a growth of the Argentinean economy of about 3-4% in 2013 and 2014….
To finish…….
Things could, of course, be much better in Argentina with more dedication, better administration and less corruption but............
This is what we got, and it is much better than what we had during the last 60 years of our history….
Fuerza, Sra. Kirchner!
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