According to Diario Libre, neither the accord with the International Monetary Fund nor the series of disbursements by multinational financial institutions have helped bring the peso into the realm of what the IMF considers to be ?acceptable? rates. The re-activation of the standby agreement is based on an exchange rate of RD$40 to US$1, but with March coming to an end that goal seems more and more utopian. As a result, the dollar will continue to weigh on the inflation indexes the IMF quantified at 14%, but which rose above 20% for the first two months of the year alone. Measures such as offering investment certificates in the Central Bank, while reducing liquidity by RD$8.5 billion, have had little influence on the exchange markets, possibly indicating that the degree of confidence needed to bring the rate down, and whose existence is a ?minefield? according to analysts, has been seriously damaged. When the IMF broke off the standby agreement following the unexpected purchase of the Union Fenosa power distribution companies, the exchange rate shot up to never-before-seen levels. The report traces the ups and down of the market over the past two months and informs that as of 1 March, the dollar price in pesos seemed to slip at a rate of RD$1 per week. On 17 March, the price descended even further to reach RD$42. But, as some had predicted, the dollar then disappeared from the market completely, only to re-emerge the following week at RD$46.