‘Argentina wants a common currency because it doesn’t have a currency’
Argentina wants a common currency among the Mercosur countries because it does not have a currency, said economist Rogério Mori this Monday, the 23rd, in the Oeste Sem Filtro program.
According to the specialist, the Argentines themselves do not have confidence in the peso.
“There is no way to imagine something that could be designed in that direction,” said Mori, referring to the idea presented by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
“Argentina actually wants this currency because it doesn’t have a currency. Argentines no longer believe in their own currency. They accept anything but the weight.”
The expert believes that there are no “minimum conditions” for the proposal to move forward.
“There needs to be alignment of economic policy among countries, equal inflation levels, common fiscal rules,” he observed.
“It is necessary to have a whole set of rules and free movement of factors, such as labor and capital. This is a process that takes decades. It’s not something you do in six months.”
Currently, says Mori, Argentina has no fiscal rules and lives with an “extremely high” inflationary process — approximately 100% a year.
Brazil would have less worrying economic conditions, according to the expert.
“Their inflation continues above that seen in other countries. This caused Argentina to lose competitiveness and have a currency crisis”, he noted.
The economist argues that the euro, used by the European Union states, cannot serve as an example.
“All countries that use this currency are very close economically, with very similar fiscal rules and debt-to-GDP ratio,” he observed.
“But that doesn’t exist between Brazil and Argentina. All these questions are preliminary. It would be necessary to create an independent Central Bank to define the monetary policies of the new currency.”
With information from Revista Oeste
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