Econviews Macro Monitor - December
www.econviews.com On the wait for the agreement with the IMF Next week the Minister of Economy will present to the National Congress his "multi-year plan", with the axis of the economic policy for the coming years, in the framework of an agreement with the IMF - which the authorities have been saying for a while that it is "almost closed". But beyond the much-needed economic roadmap for the medium term, the short-term situation is pressing. The Central Bank has few reserves and the undervalued FX rate of recent months worsens the situation: an explosive cocktail for devaluation expectations. Will the summer of 2014 be repeated, or could the government reach the months of liquidation of the gross harvest without a discrete jump in the FX rate? The FX situation and a hot summer Net reserves are at critical levels. When the exchange rate jumped 23% monthly in January 2014, net reserves were at an estimated USD 19 bn. Nowadays the situation is more delicate: the Central Bank has just over USD 6 bn of net reserves. The strategy of using the exchange rate as an anchor against inflation did not yield the desired results and the average monthly inflation since...