In the case of the MEP dollar (via AL30), its price rose 3% to stand at $223.34. Thus, the gap widens to 113.17%.
It happens in the midst of a strong appetite for the dollar that continues to grow on the Stock Exchange and in the informal circuit, hours before a key debt maturity with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whose cancellation has not yet been confirmed by the Government and keeps economic agents on edge.
In the informal segment, meanwhile, the blue dollar climbs $2 to the unprecedented $223, in a reduced business context but without sellers, operators commented. The currency in the parallel segment accumulates a rise of almost 6% so far in 2022 and the exchange gap exceeded 110% with respect to the official price, the highest level since November 2020.
Argentina, which seeks to restructure a debt with the IMF of some 45,000 million dollars, must face maturities in the first quarter of 2022 for some 4,000 million dollars to the organization and another 2,000 million dollars to the Paris Club, at a time when the Central Bank reserves are very limited.
“Argentina’s position is so critical in terms of reserves, exchange rate pressures and macroeconomic imbalances that if it does not adjust by the good or within the framework of an agreement with the IMF, it will be adjusted by the bad with a currency crisis and with more inflation” , said the economist Federico Furiase, who estimated that the net reserves of the BCRA are about 1,700 million dollars.
Given this fragility, the Argentine government asked China for an extension of more than US$3 billion in its bilateral currency swap in yuan to strengthen its reserves in the event of large and upcoming maturities with the Fund, according to official sources confirmed to Ámbito.
At a time when parallel dollars continue to rise, Argentina is seeking to ask China to expand its 130 billion yuan ($20.6 billion) swap by an additional 20 billion yuan, a person involved in the matter told Bloomberg. asked not to be identified. Argentina has already made the request and the issue will be discussed next week in Beijing when President Alberto Fernández travels there for the Olympic Games celebrations.
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