MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

CFK ratifies economic model based on defence of Argentine production and jobs

Plenty of jobs in Argentina according to official data

President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK) ratified the current economic development model with strong government intervention and supported her position with the latest data on unemployment and growth.

According to the official (and questioned) Statistics Office Indec, unemployment was down to 7.5% during the third quarter of 2010, compared to 9.1% registered during the same period last year. Unemployment in the previous quarter was 7.9%.

The Argentina president said the index had reached that percentage because of the counter-cyclical policies implemented by the government that contained the global crisis impact in the country.

“The third quarter of 2010 ends with 7.5% unemployment, which a year ago stood at 9.1%” said the president addressing the Argentine Industrial Confederation. She added that growth in the first ten months of the year was 9%, “something that would have been impossible without government stimuli policies”.

Cristina Fernandez reiterated that her government would continue to “defend jobs and Argentine production” in direct reference to protectionism claims which she said “is being launched by some countries against Argentina”.

“Everybody puts the emphasis in Customs (regulations) and tariffs but there are also sanitary barriers. That is why Argentina has an active policy in these issues as have the rest of the countries of the world”, underlined Cristina Fernandez.

Further on she said Argentina was willing to participate in the Doha Round to discuss new rules for world trade but warned that “we are not willing to sacrifice growth of our industry or the jobs generated”.

During the meeting with industrialists the Argentine president announced that trade surplus had totalled 11.4 billion US dollars during the first ten months of 2010.

Meanwhile, Economy Minister Amado Boudou said that the primary budget surplus widened to 3.1 billion pesos (754.1million US dollars) in October, compared with 702.2 million pesos a year earlier.