Argentina’s economic burdens have spawned a number of dollar-peso exchange rates. It’s the result of the government’s capital restrictions on dollar outflows. They include a black market dollar rate, as well as the “Coldplay” and “Qatar” rates. Loading Something is loading.
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Argentina’s presidential race, which features a candidate who wants to ditch the peso for the US dollar, has highlighted the country’s byzantine currency system.
There are more than a dozen different peso-dollar exchange rates that are meant to stem outflows of the greenback, which is in short supply as Argentina’s hyperinflation has made the peso among the world’s worst performing currencies.
With massive dollar-denominated debts, the peso is not a free-floating currency. There’s an official rate, but also a “blue dollar” rate determined by an underground exchange of greenbacks that’s free of governmental controls.
As there are no limits on blue dollar purchases, Argentines are more willing to purchase them at a premium, especially as they show a preference for the greenback in daily transactions. So while the official peso rate stood at just under 350-per-dollar on Friday, the blue dollar rate was 715.
Other exchange rates are not spin-offs designed to evade currency restrictions, but are actually organized by the government.
For example, the soy dollar is focused on specific sectors to offer preferential rates and improve trade flows. Dollars meant for investors and firms also exist, to help boost market activity.
There’s also a rate for tourists known as the MEP dollar. And the Qatar dollar was established during the World Cup last year when thousands of Argentines traveled to cheer on their national team in the Middle Eastern country.
Then there’s the “Coldplay dollar” — a recent addition for concert-going fans who are spending money abroad.
“They’re usually kind of a last resort that policymakers use if they’re in really dire condition if the economy’s in really dire condition,” Monica de Bolle, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said of the myriad rates.
But this bizarre currency system may cease to exist as the country weighs scrapping the peso altogether.
Argentina is set to vote on its next president in October, and frontrunner Javier Milei wants to dollarize the nation, effectively dissolving the peso.
“The moment you dollarize, all of these exchange rates cease to matter. So they disappear from night to day because pesos disappear,” de Bolle told Insider.
For her part, she considers Milei’s plan as both improbable and economically catastrophic, given that the sudden dollarization, paired with Argentina’s shortage of greenback reserves, would lay the groundwork for a severe recession.
But in the meantime, Argentines must continue to navigate the labyrinthine currency system, which could even get more complicated.
“The moment the government starts going down this path, it becomes very fast,” de Bolle said. “It just becomes a slippery slope because different segments of the economy, different sectors are going to have different needs.”