Executive summary
In May, the entities’ customers bought USD 781 million in the foreign exchange market, while the entities sold USD 701 million. For its part, the BCRA did not operate in the spot exchange market and made net payments through the Local Currency Payment System (SML) for USD 80 million. The “Non-Financial Private Sector” was a net buyer of foreign currency for USD 285 million in the foreign exchange market.
Within this group, the “Oilseeds and Cereals” sector was the main sector offering foreign currency, registering net revenues of USD 3,381 million, largely explained by its result under the heading “Goods”. For its part, the “Real Sector excluding Oilseeds and Cereals” registered net purchases of USD 110 million.
“Individuals” recorded net outflows of USD 3,846 million, mainly for the formation of foreign assets for USD 3,480 million. In addition, net expenditures were recorded for expenses for travel, tickets and other consumption made with cards with non-resident suppliers for USD 770 million (of which more than 70% would have been paid with funds in foreign currency).
In what was the exchange balance of May, the operations of the current account of the exchange balance registered a deficit of USD 149 million, explained by net outflows in the “Primary income” and “Services” accounts of USD 1,029 million and USD 939 million, partially offset by the net income of the “Goods” and “Secondary income” accounts of USD 1,811 million and USD 7 million. respectively. In turn, the foreign exchange financial account was in deficit of USD 2,054 million in May.
This result was explained by the deficits of the “Non-Financial Private Sector”, the “Financial Sector” and “Other Net Movements” of USD 1,433 million, USD 584 million and USD 530 million, respectively, partially offset by the net income of the “National Government and BCRA” of USD 493 million.
The BCRA’s international reserves decreased by USD 2,009 million in May, ending the month at a level of USD 36,919 million. This result was mainly explained by the fall in the foreign currency holdings of the entities in the BCRA by USD 1,772 million, by the net payments of interest and charges to the IMF for USD 664 million and by the net payments made by the BCRA through the Local Currency Payment System (SML) for USD 77 million.
The aforementioned movements were partially offset by the net disbursements of principal and interest payments on loans from international organizations (excluding the IMF) of USD 303 million and by the increase in the price in US dollars of the assets that make up the reserves by USD 187 million.
