IERAL produced a new Report on the Economic Situation, prepared by Miximiliano Gutiérrez, which highlights, among other things, the increasingly intense brake on the availability of imported products.
The seasonally adjusted index prepared by IERAL, based on the collection of taxes associated with the domestic market, shows a fall of 0.5% in real terms for the fourth quarter, in relation to the third, extrapolating a decline in GDP of 0.7 % for that period
In 2022, GDP would have grown 5.7% in 2022, although favored by the statistical drag of 4.5 percentage points left by 2021. In contrast, the statistical drag from 2022 to 2023 would be only 0.6 %.
The report highlights that the experience of the “soybean dollar II” in December left a temporary increase in reserves and collections from withholdings, at the cost of a significant monetary impact. By buying soybean dollars at a high price (230 pesos) and selling currencies cheaply (171.43 pesos) to importers, the monetary authority ended up issuing a net of ARS 513 billion (11.4% of the monetary base). . The exchange rate at which the reserves were accumulated ended up being ARS 268.4 per dollar.
According to the IERAL indicator, December imports would have reached USD 5.380 million, a 13.4% year-on-year drop, which compares with a 45% increase last July. From positive to negative, with a change of pace of 58.4 percentage points, in just one semester.
So… How does 2022 close?
The accumulated tax collection for 2022 exceeded ARS 19,982 billion, showing a real growth of 5.3% compared to 2021.