Argentine Central Bank President Juan Carlos Fabrega resigned Wednesday after an alleged disagreement with President Cristina Fernandez over how to keep a lid on the black market exchange rate ('blue' dollar) that hit a record 16 pesos per dollar last week.
The Argentine government is considering different options to contain the current skyrocketing of the US dollar, but according to the financial media there are different positions in the cabinet of President Cristina Fernandez. One of those calls for direct interventions while the other adopts a more passive attitude saying the issue is speculative and ‘marginal’.
With insistent rumours of imminent measures to try and control the value of the US dollar in Argentina, Central Bank Governor Mercedes Marcó del Pont, stressed that the country has more than 40 billion dollars in reserves to manage the foreign exchange market avoiding sharp changes.
Argentina's economy is seen growing 4.6% next year, improving after drought and a slowdown in top trading partner Brazil took a toll in 2012, the central bank president said in an interview published on Sunday. She also advanced that the so called ‘dollar clamp’ or strict restrictions on the purchase of foreign currency remain.
Argentine Economy Minister Hernán Lorenzino called for developed countries to set limits to ‘vulture funds’ and credit rating agencies as “promoters of the global crisis,” as he addressed the G20 Finance Ministers meeting in Mexico on Sunday.
Argentine Economy Minister Hernán Lorenzino and Central Bank Governor Mercedes Marcó del Pont are leading the country’s delegation in the technical G20 meeting in Mexico, where they are expected to insist on the government’s criticisms against ‘vulture funds’ and credit rating agencies.
Argentina’s Central bank confirmed that during the “Kirchner era” the country paid 32 billion dollars in pending debts, “the centre piece of the policy to recover sovereignty by cutting indebtedness” and praised the decision to appeal to the bank’s international reserves to support such a policy.
Argentina could require that grains futures be listed in the local Peso currency the head of the central bank said on Friday, a move that traders said would paralyze markets in the leading global food supplier.
Following the official new curbs on US dollar purchasing for savers, the head of the Argentine Central Bank Mercedes Marcó del Pont came on stage to defend the measure and anticipate that operations in the real estate market will have to be done in Argentine Pesos.
The Economist argues that with the latest legislation, the Argentine central bank has lost its legal independence and become the piggy bank of President Cristina Fernandez government.