Once again, the dollar concentrated the public’s attention, but not so much for a run but for the expectations of some change in what was considered as an stone content in the official economic program in force: the fixation of a monthly programmed devaluation below inflation. What economists refers to the “exchange anchor”, a mechanism to decelerate inflation operating on the variable of the official exchange rate and intervening in the “free” so that the exchange gap is not expanded. A commitment that paid off during the last year, but encouraged the ruling party to minimize criticism and label any questions about the sustainability of the program as operations.
Figure friend
Mobile whites were not those who questioned the foundations of the libertarian economic plan, but economists who indicated a good part of the achievements, but did not sign a blank check. Very soon, the neologisms of Econochantas, devaluatory militants, mercenary operators and the most graphic of “mandriles”, referring to the red redness of these primates from Africa.
It was not the first, but strikingly Domingo Felipe Cavallo swells the list of banished critics of the official favor. The former minister had been anointed as the best Minister of Economy in Argentine History by Javier Milei in his ‘Streamer’ format. So that there were no doubt about his criticism, he published in his blog that “IMF financing cannot replace the effort that Argentina must make to ensure the balance of external accounts and ensure that exchange stability allows consolidating the disinflation process.” “Thinking about the use of external reserves achieved through international financial organizations to intervene in the exchange market and induce or maintain an exaggerated appreciation of the weight (also vulgarly called” exchange delay “) is counterproductive and can mean the failure of the disinflation process,” he said.
Cavallo alluded directly to another position embodied by another of the most listened to economists in the financial circuit and in the Casa Rosada: Ricardo Arriazu. The veteran Tucuman economist, bases his diagnosis on something that he considers uncontrollable: the Argentine economy, because of his successive devaluation crises and recurring inflation, became a bimonary type. This causes the exchange rate oscillations to have a different effect from other economies in the region, but also that certain types of goods are dollarized, devaluation expectations cause an immediate inflationary effect and also at the level of activity.
In its exhibitions, but also in the others offered by the rest of the economists, the monothem of the public’s questions is the same: what will happen to the exchange regime and the IMF loan. At this point, the tucumano has no hair on the tongue: altering the exchange rate would be to reverse the deflationary process that the Argentine economy is living and invites to follow the wholesale price index, which rises less than half of the speed than the CPI. In its conception, devaluating is to light the hyperinflationary wick and establish flotation bands “is stupidity.”
Another economist who fell out of favor for the official vision is Ricardo López Murphy, former Minister of Economy and current national deputy. “We are in serious difficulties: using the figure of the swimmer, the lifeguard is not called if he thinks he can return on his own,” he exemplifies. “There was a bad design of economic policy and Argentina should be accumulating reservations instead of losing them,” he concluded.
Critical diagnosis
The opinion of the former president Carlos Melconian National Bank argues that at the end of last year Argentina had to have closed an agreement with the IMF with a new exchange regime, but got excited about what was obtained in the money laundering and made a bridge and then waited for the result of the elections. “The exchange regime, which was always transitory, is exhausted. The government carries out an exchange convergence process that does not go with Argentine competitiveness,” he emphasizes.
Another criticism of the system that is in the sight is Marina Dal Poggetto, director of the consulting firm Eco Go. She patented the phrase, today more current than ever, of a “Cepo-Dependent” program. “The policy is abusing the exchange anchor, but with capital control that is sustained and a normalization of import payment. And now we are entering an area where dollars are missing,” he projects. “The air that laundered and the expectation of the bridge that the IMF is dilating into a negotiation that becomes rough,” he defined. The economist puts as a milestone for the “disagreement” of expectations the statement of Minister Caputo in which he did not give certainty about the continuity of the exchange scheme (the “crawling-peg” below the monthly inflation).
Others also see that the stone of discord was the design of the economic program or in any case its difficulty to close a first stage and mutate in time. The president of Idesa, Jorge Colina, puts as a pending subject to the exchange rate regime. “The fiscal adjustment is unpublished and is having excellent results in terms of inflation reduction. But there are difficulties in recovering reservations because the exchange policy was subordinated to the objective of lowering inflation,” he said. As a sample of this problem, he points out that in December 2023 the reserves were US $ 23,000 million, they rose to US $ 30,000 million in December 2024 but ended this last March below US $ 26,000 million.
For his part, the chief economist of the Ieral, Jorge Vasconcelos, even accepting that at the start of a eventual new program the modifications to monetary-chamber policy are minimal (that is the Government’s message), “There may be skepticism regarding the ability of these instruments to satisfy quarterly goals to increase relatively demanding reserves. What happens if they are not fulfilled? Sustainability to the program. ”However, he sees in the good news of a generous loan, which is attached to accumulation requirements of difficult reserves to achieve unchanged.
The former Minister of Economy Hernán Lacunza, another of the “mandriles” object of inamistous dart And employment, ”he said. Another former official, Gabriel Rubinstein, has a more political vision of the situation and naturalizes the fact that the government does not want to twist the arm to change its fair exchange policy with this electoral timing. See how a problem that Argentina does not plan to recover the real exchange rate or a possible flotation system that allows the increase of the dollar without trauma. “With the IMF they are cumbersome negotiations because Argentina postpones the decision of certain issues for political reasons: if the stocks rise and people demand dollars, the price would rise and the government does not want to run that risk just before the elections,” he clarifies.
New winds
Others see at this juncture, a character test for an economic program that exceeds the goals achieved in its first year and a half. Orlando Ferreres, former Minister of Economy, acknowledges that we are going through turbulence, but soft than other opportunities. “I do not think that the economic team wants to loosen in the exchange rate right now, but in any case, any reasonable alteration is not certain that it is automatically transferred to prices,” he estimates. Fernando Marengo, chief economist of Blacktoro, sees that cushion uncertainty will depend on the program that is announced, in short: how many fresh funds come and if they can be used freely. “To discourage expectations, you have to show that you have dollars just to defend the exchange rate,” he emphasizes.
The economist Rosarino Salvador Distéfano, closely linked to the agro -export sector, for his part argues that there will be no exchange leap because the alternative dollars to $ 1,300 “are very expensive”. He believes that the Argentine economic program can continue without inconvenience because we will receive many funds from the IMF and international organizations. “The official dollar is at a good price, but companies must adjust their costs, be more productive and efficient to improve their margins,” he closes.
Camilo Tiscornia, director of C&T Economic Advisors, on the other hand, argues that until we know the conditions of the IMF credit such as deadlines, grace period, but above all the goals to which the government is committed, its impact and its probability of success cannot be dimension. “The consensus of economic analysts supports in general the general orientation of the economy, but they do not know that the pending agenda still has too many lines: inflation, exchange rate, economic activity, credit, agreement with the FM and clouds are also added in the external front,” he says.
As for the melted loan of the background, the UCEMA professor Federico Vacalebre believes what is expected is that the first disbursement be as large as possible. “It is vital to absorb the non -transferable letters of the Central Bank and thus power in some way or another to return the debt to the treasure that generated it using the Central Bank itself,” he explains. “Possibly put some kind of conditioning such as floating between bands and that there is some type of ‘dirty’ intervention and oscillating the dollar between a minimum and a maximum,” he risks in his prognosis.
Precisely, the uncertainty is the one that dominates the scene, for Lorenzo Sigauut Gravina, Balance Economist. “When the agreement with the fund is known and what will be monetary policy, it seems to me that it should help, then we can discuss whether what was finally signed is sustainable or notbut it will generate more certainty, ”he warns.
Finally, Matías Surt, chief economist of the invecq consultant, He warns that if the program with the fund, it is only fresh money and no change in exchange policy is included, it can be even more effective in the short term, but inconsistent in the long term. “In the short term everything would stabilize again, but the exchange policy would not be modified with the crawling PEG that had been used so far and there would be more dollars to feed that market dynamic,” he synthesizes. And then? There is the dilemma. Once again dilemmas of the economy in electoral era as has happened every two years for more than 40. A circle that does not end up becoming vicious, but neither in virtuous. The currency, again, is in the air.
You may also interest you
Image gallery
