MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina's economy expands 8% in first quarter

Argentina's economy expanded 7.6% in March compared to a year ago and accumulated 8% growth in the first quarter of the year according to a release from the country's Statistics and Census Office.

The March Economic activity estimate index was up 0.9% over February which means the Argentine economy has been running positive for the last 52 consecutive months. The official growth estimate for 2007, according to the federal budget, is 4% but private analysts agree that the final figure will be in the range of 7.5% or higher. The Argentine economy melted in 2001/02 when the GDP violently contracted 10.9%, in what was considered the most dramatic recession in decades, and definitively buried the convertibility system, from the early nineties, when one Argentine peso was equivalent to one US dollar. Argentina defaulted on its huge sovereign debt and the exchange rate soared to almost four pesos to the US dollar. However eighteen months later the economy was back on track and growing with an expansion of 8.7% in 2003, 9% in 2004, 9.2% in 2005 and 8.5% in 2006.