Informe de Evolución del Mercado de Cambios y Balance Cambiario

This report analyzes the evolution of purchases and sales of foreign currency in the foreign exchange market, corresponding to December.

Main aspects

In December, the BCRA made purchases directly from the National Treasury for a total of US$ 950 million. For their part, the rest of the public sector agencies together with banks and other entities sold US$ 438 million and US$ 254 million, respectively, which were bought by private sector clients through the foreign exchange market.

Without net intervention by the BCRA with the entities in the market, the volume traded in the foreign exchange market totaled US$ 50,140 million (US$ 2,639 million on a daily average), a level that represented a new maximum in the history of the foreign exchange market and registered an increase of 20% in year-on-year terms.

The operations of the current account of the foreign exchange balance were in deficit by US$ 1,765 million, basically as a result of the net outflows from the “Primary income” and “Services” accounts of US$ 1,118 million and US$ 891 million, respectively. These movements were partly offset by net income of US$ 220 million from the “Goods” account, as a result of export receipts of US$ 4,449 million and import payments of US$ 4,229 million.

The capital and financial account of the “Non-Financial Private Sector” (NFPS) registered net outflows of 1,430 million, showing a fall of US$ 2,560 million compared to the surplus of the same month in 2016, mainly explained by the reversal of the balance due to the formation of foreign assets. It should be noted that December last year produced most of the income derived from tax disclosure, which explains the atypical behavior of that month, which conditioned the year-on-year comparison.

The operations of the capital and financial account of the “Financial Sector” resulted in a surplus of US$ 289 million, explained by the net income from financial loans and debt securities of US$ 296 million and by a fall in the liquid foreign assets of the entities that make up the General Exchange Position (PGC) by US$ 98 million. partially offset by the use of funds for the primary subscription of securities for US$ 104 million.

The foreign exchange capital and financial account of the public sector and the BCRA resulted in a surplus of US$ 2,748 million, basically explained by the foreign currency income of the National Treasury from the net issuance of LETES denominated in dollars for US$ 1,350 million, and financial loans and debt securities for about US$ 1,300 million.

With these movements, the BCRA’s international reserves increased by US$ 492 million during December, reaching a maximum of US$ 56,415 million on 12/22/17, and closing the year at US$ 55,055 million. During 2017, international reserves increased by US$ 15,747 million.

In 2017, the BCRA made net purchases in the foreign exchange market for US$ 16,036 million (US$ 16,124 million purchased directly from the National Treasury and US$ 88 million sold to entities). For their part, the entities and the rest of the public sector agencies sold US$ 7,362 million and US$ 5,093 million, respectively, which were purchased by private sector clients through the foreign exchange market.