MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Argentine economy expands 8.8% in 2011; capital outflow reaches 21.5bn dollars
The economy completed eight years of sustained growth since the 2002 default The Argentine economy expanded 8.8% in 2011 according to the controversial National Statistics office, Indec, while the Central bank reported that 21.5 billion dollars fled from the country last year, which is 88% higher than in 2010.
The final expansion percentage for last year was obtained following the Monthly Estimate of Economic Activity which showed that in December the economy grew 5.5% over the same month in 2010 in spite of a 0.2% decrease over November 2011.
The Economic Activity monthly estimate is a provisional monthly anticipation which serves to measure the variation of the GDP.
Argentine GDP in the third quarter of 2011 expanded 9.3% compared to the same period a year ago, while in 2010 the increase was 9.2%, thus accomplishing eight years of sustained growth since the economic and financial debacle of 2002.
Regarding the outflow of capital the Central Bank estimated that 21.5 billion dollars left the country in 2011, which is 88% higher than in 2010. In the last quarter of 2011 the outflow reached 3.26bn dollars compared to the 8.44bn of the July-September quarter.
At the end of October President Cristina Fernandez imposed strict capital movement measures and severely limited the purchase of foreign currency in banks and money exchange houses. Since that all foreign money purchases must be checked by the Tax Revenuer Office, which decides on the operations taking into account the purchasing capacity of each buyer.
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Read all commentsMean while a big mac has now gone up to 35 peso lol ;-))))
Feb 21st, 2012 - 09:23 am 0In the interests of 'balanced reporting', it may not be that all the out-flow of capital is 'fleeing'.
Feb 21st, 2012 - 10:44 am 0To 'flee' means to fear the implications of staying put and, whilst this may be a rational response to present circumstances, much of the capital movement overseas is not this.
It is the transfer of capital returns back to the countries that put the capital into Argentina in the first place.
In a country where so much of industry is not Argentinian, this is inevitable
- unless, of course, the Government stops the money getting out of the country.
The result of too much capital export control will naturally arrest rapidly further investment in the country - and accelerate its already rapid decline.
Very bad and insensitive handling of the levers of power and control.
2. That is partially correct but how many countries do you know that have money sniffing dogs at the borders? Cash is leaking out of that country like a sieve. Everyone knows there is a HUGE peso depreciation coming sometime this year unfortunately the big $ is already out of the country now its the middle class trying to save their capital and getting caught.
Feb 21st, 2012 - 12:34 pm 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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