El Diario reports:
According to economic analysts
- The Central Bank tried to dispel concerns in the population and minimized the measure
- The determination is linked to the fall of reserves said a specialist
- There will be no devaluation and the model will not be adjusted, said yesterday, Pablo Ramos, president of the issuing institute
BOLIVIAN ECONOMY DEPENDS ON THE UNITED STATES’ CURRENCY.
The sudden cancellation of the sale of the US currency, through BCB windows at the government headquarters, what it does is to maintain the wholesale sale of the dollar eliminating the retailer, but it turns out that it is a “blunder” because it will affect the expectations of the population and contributes almost nothing to the balance sheet of the issuing institute, commented the analyst, José Gabriel Espinoza.
For his part, his colleague Daniel Atahuici considered that the determination is related to the persistent fall of monetary reserves and forecasted the possibility of an adjustment in the exchange rate policy.
The president of the BCB, Pablo Ramos, ruled out any exchange modification and dismissed, in a statement to a radio station, yesterday, adjustments in the economic model in his effort to reassure the population.
“FAUX PAS”
“The resolution is a screw-up because it affects people’s expectations and does not contribute to the BCB’s (and the RIN’s) balance sheet,” Espinoza said on his Facebook account on Sunday.
On October 23, by resolution of the Board of Directors, the issuing institute rendered the sale of dollars through a window in the Central Bank building ineffective.
The measure was known on Thursday, November 1, thanks to the political opposition that delivered to the press the resolution signed by the Board of the state entity and President Pablo Ramos himself.
Espinoza said that such a decision will not generate a parallel market because there is a high informality in the activities of the national economy, and much more in the monetary, but added that monetary policy generates expectations and that compared to the salary of a cashier that is nothing .
“If the measure generates negative expectations (which should dissipate quickly), tomorrow the lucky few who can save will run to get their dollars out of the banks … and those who are lucky enough to be able to save and they did it in Bolivians,” he warned.
Ramos ratified, in an interview by the official media, that the sale of foreign currency to the people, through its windows, was only a temporary measure of a duration of 36 months and since that term has expired, then this new purely administrative action was assumed.
Now the Central Bank will consolidate its role as a wholesale provider and the population will be able to continue buying dollars in private banks and exchange houses.
RESERVES
Therefore, this measure of window closures is also “not related to the decrease in reserves, some say yes because the reserves are falling, but with this measure they will not increase or decrease reserves, that is, they will not stop a fall in reserves,” he said.
In this regard, in the last four years the monetary reserves of the issuing entity decreased, accumulating US $ 6.4 billion dollars last September.
Also, he stressed, the trade balance will not be affected, because exports will not increase or imports will decrease.
In the same way, “it will not affect the exchange rate because the exchange rate remains exactly the same and will be maintained because stability is for us a condition for the development of this model. The exchange rate for the purchase is still 6.86 and for the sale of 6.96, that is not going to change, so there is no incidence on this variable,” he insisted.
Bolivian Thoughts 