The statistics bureau reports are painting a still uninviting picture of the country's current economic situation.
On Wednesday of this week, the INDEC statistics bureau published its Monthly Economic Activity Estimator (EMAE), which are the basis to the country's gross domestic product (GDP) figures to be published in the last quarter of the year. The results showed that the pace of the country's recession is worsening. June has shown the largest contraction by far, as it ended with a 4.3 decline in the economic activity on a year basis.
Both April and May ended with a 2.1 percent contraction and in the first three months of the year the economy performed somewhat better, with growth of half a percentage point on average in January (up by 0.3 percent), February (1.0 percent) and March (0.4 percent).
In sum, during the first half of the year, the economy fell by 1.3 percent according to EMAE's estimate.
Still, that decline is milder than some of the country's most recent recessions, figures showed.
According to the report, 2014's contraction following the devaluation early that year was significantly stronger than 2016's so far, with 11 out of 12 months in negative territory and August registering a 5.5 plunge. 2009, the year in which the international financial crisis hit Argentina the worst, even saw a month with a 13 percent decline, although the year's average was much lower, but still worse than this year. Overall, the economy is on a similar activity level as it was five years ago, the report revealed yesterday, confirming that stagnation has been the norm since 2011. From next month onwards, the EMAE reports will come out on a regular basis, re-establishing a normal schedule of publication with no retro-fitting needed for old, unpublished data as was the case this time.
The figures came out only a day after INDEC re-launched its quarterly report on jobs, revealing that 9.3 percent of workers suffered from unemployment in the second quarter of the year which was reported in our previous Newsletter.
The report also showed that 18.9 percent of people under 29 years failed to find a job despite looking for one, while a third of earners declared to be unregistered workers, a fact which can rob them of key benefits such as access to pensions and healthcare.
The recession is worrisome as public and private reports on industry and construction also show signs of contraction, as well as retail sales and consumption. Other areas of the economy such as agriculture have shown a significant recovery, while real estate and finance have also gained some ground.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) forecasted earlier this year that the country's economy will shrink by 1.5 percent in 2016, a greater contraction than initially expected.
Their figure is similar to that of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which also lowered growth forecasts for Argentina in 2016 to minus -1.5 percent earlier this year.
Source Buenos Aires Herald
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