Argentina's inflation rate accelerated for the third straight month in March, the government statistics agency said on Tuesday, prompting the central bank to unveil fresh measures to temper raging inflation and protect the embattled peso currency.
The poverty rate in Argentina during the second half of 2018 rose to 32%, or six percentage points from the same period the previous year, while 6.7% of citizens are living in a state of extreme poverty or indigence. The data was released by the INDEC Argentina's official statistics bureau on Thursday.
Manufacturing performance in Argentina during 2018 was one of the worst since the 2001/02 collapse and melting of the country's economy according to the latest release from the stats office, Indec. Manufacturing dropped 14.7% in December compared to the same month in 2017, ending 2018 with an overall decrease of 5%.
The construction industry in Argentina ended 2018 with a paltry 0.8% growth, and although taking off at the beginning of last year with a vigorous impulse but beginning May, when the financial situation forced the Peso to lose half of its purchasing power, activity started to freeze ending December with a 20.5% collapse.
Argentina's stats office Indec, is scheduled to announce December's inflation and for the whole of a very volatile 2018 next Tuesday, with estimates ranging at 48%, the highest in the country since 1991. November's Consumer Price Index was 3.2%.
Manufacturing in Argentina fell 6.8% in October year on year, while construction declined 3.7%, and in the first ten months of this year 2.5% and 4.9% respectively according to the Indec statistics bureau report. Firms were hit hard by a contraction in economic activity and the devaluation of the Peso against the US dollar.
Almost two million Argentines are without a job, more precisely 1,999,387 according to the latest unemployment report from the county's stats office, Indec. In effect unemployment rose in the second quarter to 9.6%, from 8.7% a year ago, making it the highest figure in twelve years.
Argentina’s economy contracted 6.7% in June compared with the same month last year, and 1.3% compared with May, government statistics agency Indec said on Thursday. June was the third consecutive month of decline following 5.2% in May and 0.6% in April.
Argentina posted a trade deficit of US$789 million in July, government statistics agency Indec said on Wednesday, compared with a deficit of US$ 359 million in June and a deficit of US$ 748 million in July 2017.
Argentina’s industrial output plunged 8.1% in June compared with the same month last year, government statistics agency Indec said, the sharpest monthly drop since the country was in the grips of an economic meltdown in 2002.