Argentina will allow foreign tourists to exchange dollars at a higher exchange rate

Argentina will allow foreign tourists to exchange their dollars in the financial market at a higher price than the exchange rate of the common foreign exchange market when a currency run has triggered the values of the US currency in alternative markets, the Economy Ministry said on Thursday.

The official decision aims to capture dollars from the tourist sector that the Argentine Central Bank (BCRA) urgently needs to increase its reserves, avoiding that those who visit Argentina go to the marginal market to exchange foreign currency, where they get a more favorable rate than in banks for their dollars.

“The measure adopted by the BCRA will allow the sale of foreign currency in entities authorized to operate in the exchange market with the presentation of the identification document used to enter the country,” the statement said.

“The maximum amount allowed by this mechanism will be up to US$5,000. The exchange rate will be the one arising from operations in the financial market,” it said.

The peso in the interbank segment ended Thursday at ARS 129.60 per dollar when the stock market spot with liquidation was at ARS 334, and the marginal market traded at ARS 337 per dollar.

La Nación did the following exercise: a tourist who goes to a bank will sell his dollars and receive pesos. If he were to make that operation today under the new modality, he would obtain exactly ARS 330.23. That is 143% more than the ARS 135.75 he would receive in the official market. In other words, it would be very convenient for him.

The exchange operators “shall require a sworn statement from the non-resident person stating that they are a tourist and that, in the last 30 consecutive days and in the group of entities, they have not carried out operations that exceed the equivalent of US$5,000,” said the central bank in a statement.

On Wednesday, Argentina’s Minister of Tourism, Matías Lammens, advanced that the Government was looking for alternatives to capture dollars that enter the country for tourism.

“Argentina needs the dollars brought in by tourists. Today, due to the exchange rate gap, many of those dollars do not enter the central bank,” he explained to journalists.”

“We are working so that tourists effectively liquidate those dollars to the formal exchange market.”

On the other hand, actions were also decided to improve the conditions of access to the foreign exchange market for the payment of imports of inputs for strategic sectors and thus guarantee the continuity of different production processes.

“The measure to be implemented by the BCRA will allow the payment of inputs in transit, which were shipped at origin, until June 27, 2022, and have arrived in the country with SIMI (Integrated Import Monitoring System) in force until that date,” said the portfolio.

On Thursday, the central bank also decided to limit the holding of CEDEAR (domestically traded foreign paper) to companies that access the foreign exchange market.

The entity “decided to include the holding of CEDEAR in the limit of availability of US$100,000 that companies accessing the official foreign exchange market can have,” it said in a statement.

With information from Diario Financiero