Buyer's Market

As its latest move to ease one of the worst financial crises in Argentine history (TIME, May 31), the dollar-short Peron government last week cut the official base value of the peso from 4 to 4.86 to the dollar. (On the black market it went to 6.65.)

British and other nondollar traders cheered what amounted--for them--to a 20% drop in Argentine prices. ECA officials, glad to see European countries get any kind of a break, agreed that the decrees were "a step in the right direction." But they scoffed at the Buenos Aires story that it was part of a big deal that would shoot ECA dollars into Argentina. That still waited for: 1) lower Argentine wheat and meat prices; 2) Argentine willingness to pay at least part of the estimated $475 million now owing to U.S. firms.

If President Peron's advisers had hoped that the decrees would get quick dollar relief via ECA, they got a rude shock at week's end. In Washington ECA published its biggest shopping list so far for Latin America. Heading the list was Chile, due to get $12,619,000 for copper and nitrogen fertilizer for Italy, France, Britain and The Netherlands. Mexico would receive $4,000,000 for corned beef for Germany, Venezuela $12 million for petroleum products for Europe. All told, the list totted up to $32,355,398. Argentina was not even on it.

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