MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina's strong growth remains above 8%

Argentina's economic activity continued to grow strongly last August with an 8.5% expansion over the same month a year ago according to preliminary data from Ministry of Economy sources in Buenos Aires.

The sustained growth of the Argentine economy which is forecasted to range between 8.5 and 9% for the whole of 2006 is based on manufacturing, the building industry and agriculture, points out the preliminary data which will be officially released later this week by the Statistics and Census National Office.

The sustained showing of August means the Argentine economy has been growing uninterruptedly for 45 consecutive months since December 2002. The Argentine economy begun 2006 with a strong 8.7% expansion in January, 8.9% in February but slowed down to 8.3% in April and May, with a first semester averaging 8.5%.

The August indicator was boosted by the automobile industry that expanded 33% over the same month a year ago and construction 17.7%. Trade surplus in August was 949 million US dollars and inflation 0.6%.

If this year's GDP growth finally stabilizes above 8%, the 4% estimate for 2007 on which the Argentine federal budget was calculated will prove to be most conservative meaning that the push over effect for fiscal 2007 will be in the range of 2.5 and 3%.