MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine economy roaring at 9.3% in third quarter, announced CFK

The Argentine president at the Toyota plant

Argentina’s economy expanded in the third quarter at the fastest pace since 2003, said President Cristina Fernandez on Thursday during a visit to a Toyota Motor Corp. plant in the province of Buenos Aires

“GDP in the three-months through September rose 9.3% from a year earlier, compared with 8.6% in the same quarter of 2010”, said CFK adding that “we have to continue working on this path and not get sidetracked; I’m proud of what we have done and committed to the things that we still need”.

Cristina Fernandez was re-elected in October after overseeing annual economic growth that averaged 5.6% since taking office in 2007 for the first time.

Argentina’s economy is heading to its ninth year of growth after Cristina Fernandez and her late husband and predecessor, Nestor Kirchner, boosted public spending to generate jobs and raised pensions and wages to fuel domestic consumption.

A slowdown in Brazil, Argentina’s main trade partner, and the global crisis is expected to trim growth to 4.3 percent in 2012, according to local private estimates.

Brazil’s economic growth will slow to 2.97% this year from 7.53% in 2010, according to the median forecast of economists in a weekly central bank survey.

Some Argentine sectors are already feeling the pinch: exports fell 5% in October from a month earlier to 7.5 billion dollars, while industrial production rose 4.1% from a year earlier, the slowest pace in two years.

Annual inflation that economists estimate is 23%, double the official rate, has helped fuel demand for autos, real estate and dollars, as investors look to preserve their savings. Capital flight in the first nine months of 2011 reached 18 billion dollars, more than twice the pace of a year earlier, according to central bank data.

The Argentine government responded to the capital outflow by ordering some companies to repatriate foreign investments and export revenue and by tightening oversight of the foreign exchange market following her election victory. The moves helped quell demand for dollars, allowing the central bank to begin rebuilding reserves that fell to 44.7 billion dollars this week from a high of 52.6 billion in January.

CFK visited the auto plant because Toyota invested 126 million dollars to boost production by 42% to 92,000 units per year, according to an e- mailed statement from the Industry Ministry. The 776,000 vehicles produced in Argentina this year through November surpass the record 717,000 in all of 2010.