Public officials can import luxury cars to the official dollar-Sunday economy Public officials can import luxury cars to the official dollar
The lack of dollars the Central Bank is suffering forces the monetary entity to increasingly restrict access to the US currency, even when it is for commercial purposes. That is why last week, the institution presided over by Miguel Pesce, issued a statement in which it is notified that it will not deliver dollars to the concessionaires to import vehicles worth more than 25 thousand dollars.
It should be noted that this price is at FOB value, that is, without taking into account all the costs and taxes that are added once the property is deposited in the ship that will transfer it.
In this way, the measure affects all cars whose value of sale to the public is 65 thousand or 70 thousand dollars, as calculated by Carlos Cristophalo for Motor1.
Those who wish to purchase a vehicle at this price should get the dollars on the black market as the BCRA will no longer give you the official value.
However, communiqué "A" 7433, which establishes the restriction, will not affect all Argentines, as, unsurprisingly, public officials will be exempted from the measure and will be able to buy luxury cars at the price of the official dollar.
This is detailed in one of the paragraphs of the document: "the preceding requirement shall not apply in the case of a payment by: (I) the public sector; (II) all business organizations, whatever their corporate form, in which the national State has a majority interest in the capital or in the formation of corporate decisions; (III) trusts constituted with contributions from the national public sector; (IV) financial institutions for the own imports of services carried out by the same entity; or (v) entities for the cancellation of letters of credit or guaranteed letters of credit issued or issued or
In this way, public officials will be able to continue to move with luxury cars paid by the state and at the price of the official dollar, at a time when the acquisition of a conventional vehicle is becoming more and more difficult for the Argentineans. To buy one similar to those that will be handled by officials or their drivers, it will be necessary to wait for the measure to be repealed or put on sale by the state to acquire a new 0 KM.
Rise from the official dollar
As the President of the Central Bank (BCRA) Miguel Ángel Pesce had anticipated months ago in the Argentine Industrial Union, from the end of 2021 (albeit timidly) the acceleration of the crawling peg of the official wholesale dollar began and already during the first week of this year many analysts point to a stronger acceleration of the rhythm that would confirm the trend.
It happens that the delay of crawling peg (the daily microevaluations of the wholesale dollar) in relation to inflation that had been going on until November 2021 could not last much longer, considering that the monthly rate of the former was between 1 and 2 per cent and the rate of the second, between 3 and 4 per cent. Why is that? Among other reasons, BCRA's net reserves are not enough to sustain this rate of devaluation and because foreign trade increasingly requires more than a dollar to remain competitive.
This situation, according to economic analysts, is forcing the government to face a change in its monetary policy these days, reflected in a slight acceleration of the exchange rate and a change in interest rate policy.
In this sense, as the director of Analytica Claudio Caprarulo pointed out to iProfessional, "while observing the daily evolution of the exchange rate is not the best way to diagnose what is happening with the wholesale dollar, but rather to analyze the trend per week, it is clear that, in December, there was an acceleration" of the pace and believes that it would be logical to expect that, in the future, this strategy will follow.
He also explains that this behavior has a logical explanation in the fact that "the Central Bank has virtually no liquid reserves for the coming months and has to face maturities with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shortly, without the SDRs it received last year."
In this sense, and bearing in mind that, despite the record liquidation of the fine harvest, the Central could not accumulate reserves, Juan Pablo Albornoz, an analyst at Ecolatina, claims that it is logical that he is beginning to accelerate the devaluation rate in order to partially decompress the pressures in the exchange market. On the other hand, the economist specializing in the capital market, Christian Buteler, noted that "it is undeniable that the acceleration of the strongest crawling-peg began earlier this year, as we expected."
Civil servants can continue to travel with luxury cars
