MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Official Argentine economy data shows recovery in underway

Cars exports to Brazil played a crucial role in the 2009 surplus

Argentina's trade surplus widened 25% in January from the same month a year ago as both exports and imports rose, signalling an economic recovery is underway.

The trade surplus reached 1.22 billion USD last month, up from 971 million USD a year ago, the government's statistics bureau said on Tuesday, confirming the numbers given last week by President Cristina Kirchner.

Exports rose 19% to 4.42 billion USD during the month, boosted by industrial manufacturing sales, while imports were 16% higher at 3.21 billion USD.

Last year, Argentina ran a trade surplus of nearly 17 billion USD with both imports and exports plunging as the economy slowed because of the global economic crisis.

Argentina is a leading global agricultural exporter and ranks as the world's number three soy exporter and the top world supplier of soy-oil and meal.

The country's manufacturing exports have been boosted, however, by soaring car exports to neighbouring Brazil, where government tax breaks have increased demand

In related news the government said that the unemployment rate rose to 8.4% in the fourth quarter of 2009 from 7.3% in the same period a year ago.

The figure, which had also been anticipated by President Cristina Kirchner last week, compares with an 9.1% unemployment rate during the previous three months.