MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine economy expands 8%

The Argentine economy expanded 8% during the first half of the year with industry's 12,2% growth acting as the main thrust, according to figures released this week.

However the second quarter performance of the economy has been "erratic" since last April industrial production contracted 1,9% over March and in June it expanded 1% over the previous month.

"Fears about the energy shortage and a jump in fiscal revenue had an impact in businesses expectations during the second quarter", argued Argentine Central Bank president Alfonso Pat Gray.

However Mr. Pat Gray didn't seemed concerned about the slowing of growth, "this means we're normalizing, you simply can't keep expanding at a two digit rate".

Another area of the Argentine economy that is going through a good moment is beef exports which during the first seven months of 2004 reached 244,979 tons, a 53% increase over the same period in 2003.

In money value total beef exports represented 555,4 million US dollars with the highest average coming from the Hilton special cuts: 17,960 tons represented 129,6 million US dollars.