Argentina’s gross international reserves could fall to $26.1 billion by the end of next year and to a mere $15.1 billion by the time the next president takes office in December 2015

CREDIT SUISSE: 

2014 Will Be Another Brutal Year

 For Argentina's Currency

by JENS ERIK GOULD

Source: www.thefinancialist.com

This month, just as Argentines were preparing for summer vacation, they received news that surely put a damper on the travel plans of more than a few of them. The government announced it was raising its tax on overseas tourist packages and the goods and services its citizens buy abroad. Faced with plummeting foreign reserves, the tax hike is the most recent effort by the South American nation to keep inflation-spooked Argentines from pulling money out of the country.

The government is right to be concerned. In 2013 alone, reserves have plunged more than $12 billion to $31 billion, down from around $50 billion two years ago. The pace of outflows has risen for a variety of reasons, Credit Suisse’s Argentina economic and political analyst Casey Reckman writes in a recent report called “Argentina: How Low Will Reserves Go?” Foremost among them: debt service, rising energy imports, a surge in credit card purchases abroad, lower gold prices, and an artificially high exchange rate that hurts exports.

It’s a problem more than a decade in the making.


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