The economic-trade relations with Argentina are going through ‘their worst moment in a long time’, and the latest measures announced by the government of President Cristina Fernandez have a ‘very harmful effect’ on Uruguay, said Vice-president Danilo Astori on Friday.
Argentine president Cristina Fernandez announced the government is prepared to make imports more flexible in those areas where a few companies have a quasi-monopoly control, but also warned about windfall profiteering.
President Cristina Fernandez called an urgent meeting on Wednesday evening of her economic team following a day of hectic trading in the currency exchange market which had the US dollar climb to 8.75 Pesos in the parallel market, expanding the gap with the official rate to almost 70%.
The black market dollar exchange rate in Argentina pierced the milestone 8 Pesos mark while the official rate climbed to 5.09 Pesos with the gap between the two markets reaching 57%. The other ‘cash’ option: buying Argentine shares in Buenos Aires and reselling them in New York climbed 10 cents to 8.46 Pesos.
The dollar ‘clamp’ in Argentina had led to a ‘dollar trickle’ to Uruguayan banks, which according to official data from the two central banks can be estimated at a million dollars per day.
Following recent criticism from President Cristina Fernández in support of her ‘dollar clamp’ policy, Buenos Aires province Governor Daniel Scioli justified his savings in US dollars by affirming he needs to travel overseas because of his physical problem.
A court in the Argentine province of Cordoba ordered the Banco Nación to sell US dollars to a teacher, after she was authorized by AFIP tax agency to purchase Brazilian Reais, but could not do so due to lack of currency.
Following on the climbing tendency since the beginning of the year, the ‘blue’ or ‘parallel’ US dollar traded in Buenos Aires at 7.25 Argentine Pesos with a 46% gap over the ‘official’ dollar that remained relatively stable at 4.95 Pesos.
Former Economy minister Roberto Lavagna said that it will take Argentina “at least three years” to liberate the country from the ‘dollar clamp’ if as of this month it was decided to execute a policy to end restrictions on the purchase of foreign currency.
Another Argentine province, Formosa announced that it would be repaying in Pesos its dollar-denominated bonds (FORM3) issued under local law, at an exchange rate of 4.81 Pesos per dollar.