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According to Argentina’s two tier statistics system unemployment fell to 8.4%

Thursday, January 21st 2010 - 12:17 UTC
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Mrs. Kirchner also announced record trade surplues in 2009 Mrs. Kirchner also announced record trade surplues in 2009

Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced Wednesday the unemployment rate had fallen from 9.1% to 8.4% in the last quarter of 2009.

“We are back at the best level of employment in the last thirty years and we will continue working for the unemployment to keep on dropping” said Cristina Kirchner. The announcement was made during a rally in Bariloche, province of Río Negro.

Argentina’s trade surplus meanwhile reached another record of 16.59 billion USD in 2009, according to Mrs. Kirchner.

“The State must intervene in the economy when facing a crisis because this intervention is what defends job posts and this is the main goal this administration has achieved. It has also been one of the most important cores for this government since 2003”, underlined Mrs. Kirchner.

However private sector analysts cautioned that the record surplus was achieved mainly because of a dramatic drop in imports that will have an impact in production capacity. Surplus in 2008 was 12.6 billion US dollars.

“We’ve achieved this year the largest trade surplus in the country’s history” said the Argentine president.

Another index released earlier in the week indicating that the primary surplus of the federal budget had reached 5.077 million pesos in December 2009 was questioned by the Buenos Aires press quoting economists and financial think-tanks.

According to these sources the “cosmetics” of the surplus was swollen by including an IMF contribution and the payments into the nationalized private pension funds, taken over by the Kirchner administration. If these two factors had not been included, “surplus would have turned into a deficit of 8.170 million pesos”.

The Special Drawing Rights which the IMF distributed in the last quarter of 2009 among country members in the case of Argentina represented the equivalent of 5,493.7 million pesos to which must be added the contributions to the pension funds, equivalent to 7,755 million pesos.

Those same private reports indicate that during 2009 the budget primary surplus contracted 47% and the financial deficit reached 7,131 million pesos. The double surplus (budget and trade) is crucial for Argentina which is barred from international voluntary money markets, since the country has pending debts from the 2002 default.

Another controversy is inflation, rather the two tier inflation in Argentina. The official one from the Statistics office, Indec, an organization which has fallen in disrepute, was 7.7% for the twelve months of 2009. However serious institutions such as the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella with an open methodology have 2009 inflation at 15%, and 20% in 2010 as the Argentine economy picks up with bumper crops of soybeans and corn.

Categories: Economy, Politics, Argentina.

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  • exocet82

    “The announcement was made during a rally in Bariloche, province of Río Negro. ”
    Not a rally you deviates. The Inauguration of INVAP's new facility. Where they will be building the satellites that will look down to see what you do in your yard.

    2008 commercial surplus was US$ 16.591 BIn
    Télam. National news agency of Argentina. January 20, 2010.- President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner announced that: “This year we have achieved the highest commercial surplus in our history“. In addition to this, she informed that last year ended with 8,4 per cent unemployment. This was as she headed the opening ceremony of the INVAP site in Bariloche.

    ”In the most difficult year of world economic history, at least since 1930 to date, we maintained our level of activity, not the same 7 or 8 per cent rate of growth but we have achieved this year the highest commercial surplus in our history with U$S 16.591 BIn”, said the President in the city of Bariloche where she declared the new INVAP building opened.

    Cristina Fernández de Kirchner remarked that this result was achieved “based on management and organization , outdoing last year's record which had been record in exports and commercial surplus”, with US$ 12.500 BIn profit and just over US$ 70 BIn in sales.

    POLITICS
    Cristina: “We are building a satellite alongside NASA”
    Télam. National news agency of Argentina. January 20, 2010.- San Carlos de Bariloche. President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has stated that the first part of the work which opens today at the site of Argentina’s INVAP “has been financed 70 per cent by means of State funds and 30 per cent with their own resources”. “For those who do not know this, here we are today Argentineans building alongside NASA a satellite which shall measure the celerity of the oceans”, said Cristina as she headed the opening ceremony at the Bariloche site of INVAP.

    President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner remarked today that “Argentines have already been through too many failures” which is why “we need to build trust in the country, this trust that our scientists and technicians have recovered”. “ I am proud and happy to share these achievements which are not an administration's but they are the achievements of a country”.

    She also remarked that “we have achieved a higher surplus” than last year and said that unemployment in the last quarter of 2009 was “8,4 per cent, a 0,6 per cent less than the previous quarter which was 9,1”. “This means we have registered the best employment level in the last 30 years”, emphasized the President, as she declared open the new site of the Rio Negro State Technology company INVAP.

    In addition to this, the Head of State remarked that “Argentines have already been through too many failures” which is why “we need to build trust in the country, this trust that our scientists and technicians have recovered”.

    Jan 21st, 2010 - 01:22 pm 0
  • welkin

    hey, don´t forget that these numbers were achieved despitethe worst droght in decades; soybean crop was only around 30 millons tons; 2010 soybean crop will be around 52 millon tons.
    keep growing argentina.

    Jan 21st, 2010 - 10:02 pm 0
  • exocet82

    RIGHT ON BRO WELKIN!

    Jan 22nd, 2010 - 12:44 pm 0
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