MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine activity expands 4% in March but continues steady deceleration

Argentina's economic activity slowed in March to 4% year-on-year continuing a steady deceleration from the China-like rates seen through October, government data showed on Friday.

The INDEC national statistics agency reported economic activity rose 0.5% in March versus February, up from 0.3% a month earlier.

Latin America third largest economy is cooling due to high inflation, soaring costs, sluggish global growth, waning Brazilian demand for industrial goods and government trade and currency controls.

“I think it's no longer easy to hide the deceleration, whether in official figures or private figures like ours,” said Milagros Gismondi, an economist at Orlando J. Ferreres & Associates, which calculated annual growth at 2.2%.

Economic activity grew 5.2% in February and 8.7% year-on-year in March 2011, according to the EMAE index, which is a proxy for GDP. Activity began slowing in November of last year.

Argentina's economy expanded 8.9%t in full year 2011, compared with Chinese growth of 9.2%. But growth slowed to 4.8% in the first quarter, according to the EMAE. Quarterly GDP data will not be released until next month.

The Argentine government also reported jobless figures on Friday, showing the unemployment rate eased to 7.1% in the first quarter from 7.4% a year earlier. In the fourth quarter last year, the jobless rate hovered near a 20-year low at 6.7%.

Finally it must be said that INDEC stats’ accuracy, particularly regarding inflation, has been questioned both locally and overseas, including the IMF. Shadows were cast when in 2006 then president Nestor Kirchner removed professional staff and replaced them with political cronies, unsatisfied with some of the indexes.
Until then INDEC was acknowledged as a very efficient, professional reliable institution.