The battle of the airwaves The blue dollar Centrifugal force ReprintsFortunes among the islands have changed.
The gap between the official and the blue dollar has widened sharply this year.
In a story on Argentina's currency controls ("The blue dollar", June 2nd) we mistakenly described Axel Kicillof as head of the tax agency (AFIP).
Soyabean farmers, Argentina's biggest source of export dollars, are irate: they say they have to import supplies at the blue dollar rate, while for sales they receive just 3.20 pesos per dollar after paying taxes.
Unexpectedly, the "blue dollar" premium the gap between the official rate for the United States dollar and the parallel free-market rate dropped from 90% in September to 59% now.
The battle of the airwaves Centrifugal force The blue dollar ReprintsThe curbs have succeeded in cutting capital flight, from $8.4 billion in the third quarter of last year to just $1.6 billion in the first quarter of this year.
The exchange rate for the unofficial "blue" dollar, as it is popularly called (for reasons which are obscure), is out of control.All this has prompted some businesses to rethink.
Our apologies to both men.In this section Hugo's last hurrah Little pain for Peña Shaming the unshameable The eye of the storm Self-determination in the South Atlantic Correction: The blue dollar Reprints.
They are talking of halting the sale of this year's soya harvest in May in protest.In an effort to control the blue dollar, Guillermo Moreno, the belligerent secretary for internal trade, has tried to bully foreign-exchange dealers.
Those who wish to swap more of their inflation-plagued, volatile pesos for stable currencies must do so on a parallel market, referred to as the "blue".The blue dollar rate, which is often viewed as an economic pressure gauge, climbed to a record high of 16 pesos to the dollar late last month.
