Argentina’s Central Bank has terminated its contract with the local mint to print 1,000 ($0.98) and 2,000 ($1.9) peso notes due to their high cost, the La Nacion newspaper reported.
According to the newspaper, mint employees have been sent on forced leave. “The banknotes that will no longer be printed are not needed. Today, the system is already sufficiently supplied with them and larger denominations are needed,” a source in the Central Bank told the publication.
In addition to the 1,000 and 2,000, Argentina uses 100 ($0.01), 500 ($0.05) and 10,000 ($9.8) peso notes. The country receives its largest banknotes from China. A company from that country also won a contract to print 20,000 peso ($19.6) notes, which are expected to appear at the end of the year. According to La Nacion, companies from the United States, Brazil, France and Great Britain submitted bids for the tender, and all of them offered lower printing costs than the Argentine mint.