QCOSTARICA – Since September 18, the price of the dollar exchange has remained above ¢600 and analysts do not expect a significant drop for the remainder of the year.
This week the average exchange in the Monex market fell ¢4.88 and ended on Friday, December 4, at ¢ 601.70.
Traditionally, at the end of the year, companies that receive income in dollars or transnationals exchange dollars to colones to pay the Aguinaldo (Christmas bonus), and in previous years the deadline for paying income tax was on December 15.
This year, however, the December paying income tax deadline did not occur because the Tax Reform Law included a new fiscal period, as it is now March 15 starting in 2021.
Those two factors caused downward pressure on the exchange rate of the dollar against the colon.
“With respect to what we visualize the price of the dollar (exchange) for the remainder of the year, we do not observe that there is a significant drop in the exchange price, without neglecting that it is typical that by the end of the year there is a tendency to the withdrawal,” said Coopemep’s chief financial officer, Adrián Sanabria.
“Close to ¢600, it seems to me a reasonable (exchange) rate where the Central Bank is going to feel comfortable, remember that it is not strictly free because when there are very important changes the Central Bank intervenes,” said Vidal Villalobos, the Prival Group’s economic advisor.
During this year there has been a sharp decline in the supply of foreign currency generated by restrictions on tourism due to the pandemic and fiscal problems, affecting the exchange rage.
“We will have pressure on the exchange rate due to the lack of tourists, then the issue of the International Monetary Fund, the pandemic, came upon us, and people began to save much more in dollars or they started to go from loans from dollars to colones and all that caused the exchange rate to rise,” said Villalobos.
“Although it is true that international tourism has resumed, the supply of the currency has been reduced, affecting the rates of change in the exchange rate,” added Sanabria.
