translated from Spanish: What economists said after change control announcements

The economic crisis and the constant currency flight forced the government to announce exchange control measures, a regulation that President Mauricio Macri resisted to this day. Obligation to exporters to liquidate foreign exchange, authorization for the exchange of dollars abroad and restriction on the purchase of up to US$ 10,000 per month per person are some of the measures taken by decree.  

“Some things came late and badly when the crisis came,” the former president of the Central Bank, Alejandro Vanoli, said, adding: “What a delusion was to have eliminated the obligation to liquidate exports. That freedom was the free float, the mega-devaluations, the indebtedness, the elimination of financial prudential regulations.” As Vanoli stated on his Twitter account, “the managed flotation, some minimum regulations to exporters and large speculators, should never have been abandoned. Trade opening in the world. Now all partial and inconsistent afternoons.” The economist and presidential candidate on the Awakening front, José Luis Espert, was one of the most critical of the announcement’s change control announcements.

Macri ends up being a continuation of kirchnerism… and good manners just because he didn’t have more time— Jose Luis Espert (@jlespert)
September 1, 2019

“What Macri should have done is take care of the floating reserves, without change control, so that one day all the barriers to tariffs are removed and import tariffs down. Opening to trade is the big structural reform that Argentina has to do,” said Espert.Rodrigo Alvarez, CEO of consultancy Analytica, stressed that “reserves must be defended” and considered that “it was restricted to the purchase of dollars or burn reserves and to make the next government more aggressive a debt re-profile.” The former deputy general manager of the Central Bank, Sebastia Soler, asked: Is it enough to prohibit legal persons from buying dollars for treasure but by allowing humans to buy up to $10,000 per month? And he responded in detail from a monetary authority report showing that during the month of July 69% of purchases of individuals were less than $10,000.And Gabriel Rubinstein, another former Central official, said that “more important than controlling changes, which was falling, is that the full freedom to withdraw dollar deposits is strongly secured. It’s our healthyest financial system,” he said. In this note:

Original source in Spanish