ARGENTINA: PEOPLE STILL BUY DOLLARS FOR PERSONAL ECONOMIC SECURITY IN LIGHT OF CONTINUING CRISIS

Record ID: 448952

  • Title: ARGENTINA: PEOPLE STILL BUY DOLLARS FOR PERSONAL ECONOMIC SECURITY IN LIGHT OF CONTINUING CRISIS
  • Date: 15th March 2002
  • Summary: (U7) BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA (MARCH 13, 2002) (REUTERS) 1. SLV PEOPLE ON LINE AT A FOREIGN EXCHANGE HOUSE 0.09 2. LAS BOARD WITH EXCHANGE RATE TO PURCHASE DOLLAR "BUY TWO POINT THIRTY SELL TWO POINT FORTY"; MV PEOPLE ENTERING FOREIGN EXCHANGE HOUSE; SLV INTERIOR OF EXCHANGE HOUSE (4 SHOTS) 0.31 3. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PROPRIETOR OF EXCHANGE HOUSE ALFREDO PIANO SAYING "I am optimistic because of the entrance of foreign currency in the country and I think that the dollar will remain stable or go down more." 0.37 4. SLV LINE IN FRONT OF FOREIGN EXCHANGE HOUSE; SCU WORRIED MAN IN LINE; SCU MAN WITH CALCULATOR (3 SHOTS) 0.48 5. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) UNIDENTIFIED MAN ASKED WHY HE'S BUYING DOLLARS WHEN THE PRICE IS SO HIGH SAYING "Higher than when? Maybe tomorrow it'll be worse; that's why we're all here." 0.52 6. MV SAVERS BANGING POTS AND OTHER OBJECTS AGAINST METAL GATES OF BANK; SLV POLICE STANDING BY TO PROTECT BANK AS PEOPLE DEMONSTRATE; DEMONSTRATORS WITH POSTER SAYING "BANKS THIEVES RETURN OUR DOLLARS"; SLV SECURITY GUARDS STANDING GUARD INSIDE BANK NEXT TO DOOR; SLV SAVERS DEMONSTRATING (5 SHOTS) 1.16 7. MV POLICE IN RIOT GEAR WALKING 1.19 8. SLV PEOPLE ENTERING STOCK EXCHANGE WITH SECURITY AT GATE; PEOPLE BANGING ON SHUTTERS (4 SHOTS) 1.40 9. SLV DEMONSTRATORS OF THE GROUP "MOVEMENT WITHOUT JOBS" MARCHING TOWARD STOCK EXCHANGE; SLV AREA RESIDENTS LOOKING AT DEMONSTRATION FROM WINDOW OF NEARBY BUILDING; S;V DEMONSTRATORS CHANTING IN FRONT OF STOCK EXCHANGE; MV DEMONSTRATORS WRITING ON SIDEWALK; SLV POLICE PROTECTING STOCK EXCHANGE; MV DEMONSTRATOR'S POSTER THAT READS "GENUINE WORK"; SLV SIDEWALK PAINTED WITH "BANKS SHOULD PAY FOR THE CRISIS, NOT THE UNEMPLOYED NOR THE CITIZENRY. SIGNED THE MOVEMENT WITHOUT JOBS." (15 SHOTS) 2.45 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 30th March 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
  • Country: Argentina
  • Reuters ID: LVA8DRIMTOMXQWNJXYROX7USM5OW
  • Story Text: Argentines continue to buy dollars for their own
    personal economic security in light of the country's
    continuing crisis.

    For yet another day, Argentines stood on long lines
    outside banks and exchange houses to convert their
    cash into dollars.

    After Tuesday's (March 12) alarming slide, the peso traded
    slightly higher at 2.35/2.37 at the Wednesday (March 13)
    midsession.

    Tuesday's historic low trading of the peso at 2.48/2.50
    (buy/sell rate) per (U.S.) dollar on the foreign exchange
    market represented a fall of almost 60 percent against the
    dollar since the end of the one-to-one peg with the greenback.

    After an appeal by an alarmed President Eduardo Duhalde,
    the Central Bank of Argentina intervened in the foreign
    exchange market Wednesday (March 13) to prop up the currency
    by selling dollars at artificially low levels. But there was
    no sign of the major intervention Duhalde had called for.

    Tuesday's peso fall was the first time the recently
    floated currency had slipped below the exchange rate of
    Brazil's real currency.

    Even at Wednesday's (March 12) relatively high cost,
    Argentines were willing to pay for dollars. One man, asked
    why he would pay that price to exchange his pesos for dollars,
    echoed the sentiments of others on the line.

    "Higher than when?" said the unidentified man. "Maybe
    tomorrow it'll be worse; that's why we're all here."
    Meanwhile, sporadic protests continued to spring up across
    Argentina, including demonstrations in front of banks in
    downtown Buenos Aires where depositors' life savings have been
    frozen since a run on the banks in December.

    In what is now an almost daily show of the public anger
    that flared into riots and looting late last year, toppling
    the government and leaving 27 dead, angry savers have
    continued banging pots and pans outside many banks to protest
    rules that they see as holding their savings hostage.

    With no end to the recession in sight, nearly half of the
    population now lives below the poverty line, defined by a
    family's ability to pay for essential goods and services such
    as food, rent and electricity, while more than 20 percent
    are out of work.

    Many Argentines fear runaway inflation will come next with
    many doubting the government's forecast of 15 percent
    inflation.

    One sign, painted on the sidewalk by a group of
    demonstrators who call themselves "The Movement Without Jobs"
    read "Banks should pay for the crisis, not the unemployed nor
    the citizenry."
    All this comes as the International Monetary Fund set
    aside urgent pleas by President Eduardo Duhalde and said the
    country's passage of an austere budget with 15 percent
    spending cuts was insufficient to warrant additional aid.

    Duhalde's economic plans, based on spending cuts and a
    devaluation and free floating of the peso, depend heavily on
    fresh IMF loans to pull the country out of a recession well
    into its fourth year.


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