Category: Argentina

Félix Alberto Camarasa is stepping down from the board of Argentina’s Central Bank (BCRA), a position he has held since June 2002. The departure of Camarasa leaves the following board members: Zenón Biagosch, Arnaldo Bocco, Eduardo Cafaro, Waldo Farías, Jorge Levy, Arturo O’Connell and Luis Corsiglia.

Eduardo Hecker, formerly head of Banco Ciudad, has taken over as head of Argentina’s securities commission, CNV. He will be joined by Alejandro Vanoli, who becomes vice-president. Hecker replaces Narciso Muñoz, who resigned on October 17. The change of team at the Commission reportedly mirrors the new stage in the economy and the need to grow the domestic capital markets significantly.

Argentina’s country risk fell to a low of 278 basis points Thursday, as measured by JP Morgan’s EMBI+ index. Analysts concurred that Argentina’s improving macroeconomics have helped bring down the country risk, as well as a general repositioning of investors with regards to emerging markets in general. Argentina’s country risk has fallen 43% this year, from 492bp at the start of the year and compares with the stratospheric heights reached in August 2002 following the country’s debt default when the spread was over 7,000bp.

Argentina-based telecoms company Impsat has been sold to US-based Global Crossing, a company that provides telecoms solutions, in a deal worth $336 million. Global Crossing, registered in Bermuda, will pay $9.32 per share in an all-cash transaction, said Impsat in a released statement. The deal will see Global Crossing pay $95 million in cash and assume $241 million of debt. “The acquisition has been unanimously approved by the Board of Directors of Impsat”, continued the release, adding that shareholders representing just short of a third of the common stock of the company had supported the transaction. Impsat has operations in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile, Peru and Colombia in Latin America.

The government of the Province of Buenos Aires sold $475 million of 12-year government bonds at a yield of 9.75 percent on Tuesday, the first time the province that includes the Argentine capital had sold debt since the 2002 default. The lead manager of the issue was Merrill Lynch, which had expected a yield as high as 10 percent for the bonds.

Argentina’s trade surplus fell 10.3 percent to $895 million in September compared with the same period a year ago as a surging economy sucks in more imports. The surplus in the first nine months of the year stood at $9.09 billion, 1.5 percent higher than in the comparable period in 2005. Imports rose 28 percent to $3.17 billion in September while exports rose 17 percent to $4.07 billion.

Pluspetrol, an Argentine oil company, will resume pumping 50,000 barrels a day of oil after reaching agreement with Achuar Indians in Peru, who blocked company installations for 13 days to complain about environmental damage. Pluspetrol agreed to pay $12.4 million for a local health plan and contribute $1.2 million a year towards building a local airport. The Peruvian government also promised the Achuar 5 percent of the money from an oil-funded regional development plan.

The Argentine government said it accumulated a fiscal surplus before debt payments of $709 million in September, 36.8 percent more than a year earlier as a surging economy provided higher than expected tax receipts. The Argentine economy is set to grow more than 8 percent this year. In the first nine months of the year the surplus before debt payments was $6.12 billion, 13.1 percent more than the same period in 2005.

Argentina’s economic growth continues to march onwards and upset analysts’ growth forecasts, with year-on-year expansion in August of 8.6%. In the same month last year, the economy had its strongest monthly growth, expanding 10.5% year on year. On a monthly basis, GDP expanded 1.1% from July. Growth for the eight months through August was 8.5%.

Bolivia and Argentina Thursday signed a new 20-year gas deal that will see Bolivia increasing the supply of its natural gas to its southern neighbor from current levels of 7.7 cubic meters a day up to 27 cubic meters a day by 2010. Bolivia’s government estimates the new deal will earn the country around $17 billion from sales to Argentina during this period. The importance of the deal for both countries was underlined by the attendance of both presidents, economy ministers and other high-ranking government officials at a signing ceremony in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. For Bolivia the contract is the first tangible evidence of a renegotiated energy deal since the government announced in May that it was nationalizing the hydrocarbons sector. For Argentina, heading towards an energy crunch, it is a guarantee of future supplies to power its thermoelectric generation plants.