Stocks in Argentina: Alberto Fernández aims to unify the exchange market in 2023

By Francisco Aldaya

Alberto Fernández confirmed this weekend that he aims to unify the exchange rate in Argentina before concluding his presidential term in December 2023.

“We are working so that the exchange market is unified, and we want to reach that goal,” he said in an interview with the newspaper Perfil. And when asked if he would try to do it next year, Fernández replied: “Yes, it is what he would like the most.”

In this way, the president expressed himself against the continuation of exchange rate unfolding policies implemented during his administration, as happened in the cases of the soybean dollar and the Qatar dollar.

“We should have a single exchange market. When Néstor [Kirchner] was president we had a single dollar market, and Cristina [Fernández de Kirchner] throughout her administration had a single dollar market,” Fernández considered, without referring to the exchange rate implemented by the current vice president in 2011.

For Fernández, exchange controls during the first three years of his government were necessary because “we received a Central Bank without dollars.”

“Between my arrival, since I won the election until I took office as president, US$25 billion left Argentina. In this context, the pandemic caught us. The reconstruction of the reserves costs a lot and despite the fact that we have an export record this year, we also have an import record because Argentine production did not stop”, added the president of Argentina.

Without providing further details on how he intends to face the unification of the multiple exchange rates that currently govern the country, the president added “we have made an enormous effort, but the lack of dollars is a problem, and our duty is to seek the how the dollars are used for precisely that.”

ADJUSTMENT AND STABILITY PLAN IN ARGENTINA

In more general terms, Fernández reiterated that they are “reluctant” to a shock adjustment, because that “always meant more devaluation and more loss of income for the weakest sectors.”

“Regarding a stability plan, we are working on it. The price plan that Sergio has carried out from the Secretary of Commerce is a plan in that sense,” he added.

With information from Bloomberg Línea