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BUENOS AIRES — Argentina’s economy is expected to grow 7% this year and 4.5% in 2022, President Alberto Fernandez said on Friday, forecasting a rebound after three years of recession exacerbated in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The center-left leader’s forecast was more optimistic than the market’s current expectation. Independent analysts see Argentina’s economy expanding 6.3% this year, according to the latest poll of economists by the central bank. The poll forecasts year-on-year growth of 2.5% in 2022.
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Latin America’s No. 3 economy shrank 9.9% in 2020 after contracting 2% in 2019 and 2.6% in 2018.
“We are on the road to economic recovery. Argentina is growing, recuperating jobs and will recover income,” Fernandez said in a televised speech.
“There are very important sectors of the economy that are at a similar level or above 2019. In addition, in 2019 there was a recession and now there is a recovery. This year investment recovered, 14 points above 2019 so far,” he added.
Gross domestic product grew 2.5% in the first quarter of the year versus the same 2020 period, beating analysts’ forecasts. The rise came after a 4.3% contraction in the fourth quarter of last year and a record 19% plunge in the second quarter of 2020, when Argentina was getting hit hardest by the pandemic.
But inflation remains a problem in Argentina. Consumer prices in the grains-producing country rose 3.2% in June alone, taking 12-month inflation above 50% for the first time since early last year. Prices rose 25.3% in the first half of 2021 and were up 50.2% versus a year earlier, according to official data.
July inflation data is expected to be released next week.
(Reporting by Eliana Raszewski and Hernan Nessi; Writing by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Frances Kerry and Steve Orlofsky)
Argentine president says economy to grow 7% in 2021, 4.5% in 2022 - Financial Post
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