Economic activity during November last year increased 2.6% compared to the same month in 2021, the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec) reported today.
The Monthly Estimator of Economic Activity (EMAE) registered a drop of 0.7% in November in relation to October, and when INDEC only has to compute December, the accumulated growth of last year reached 5.9%.
Thirteen of the 16 items surveyed by the agency closed with an increase. The only casualties were recorded in Fishing, with 16.8%; Agriculture and Livestock, strongly influenced by the drought, with 6.3%, and Financial intermediation, with 3.3%.
The biggest increases were noted in “Hotels and restaurants” with 22%; exploitation of mines and quarries, 9.5%; Wholesale and retail trade, 3.5%; Real estate, business and rental activities, 3.6%; Industry 2%; Construction 2.9%, among others.
INDEC also consulted businessmen about how they expect domestic demand to evolve up to and including February and 26.7% of those surveyed estimated that it would decrease against 25.5% who anticipated an increase, while the remaining 47.8% did not anticipate changes.
Regarding exports, 19% of those consulted estimated that they will increase, against 18.2% who anticipated a decline, while the remaining 62.8% did not envision major changes.
The Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, affirmed that the growth of the Gross Product in 2022 will be “well above 5%” and remarked that “you can fight against inflation and order spending without cooling the economy and proposing painful adjustments”. .
He also assured investors that “they will have our full support” and urged that “we work to recover income, because the middle class and Argentine workers had a hard time.”
The head of the Palacio de Hacienda pointed out that his expectation for 2023 is to “grow more than three points”, and remarked that “the path is credit recovery, consumption capacity, and the other great path is income recovery.”
In this way, Massa explained, “it would be the third year of consecutive growth, and Argentina has not grown three consecutive years for a long time.”
For his part, the Secretary of Productive Development of the Nation, José de Mendiguren, affirmed that “worldwide, Argentina leads the growth rates in industrial matters, with a very good performance in terms of the economy.”
“We are going to close 2022 with a growth of 5.5% and this would guarantee that, in a year like the current one, due to drag and due to measures that we will also be taking, it is above 3%,” De MendIguren assured Radio Provincia from Buenos Aires.
“My responsibility within the economic team is to make an effort to stabilize the economic variables, but the level of activity must be maintained,” he said.
“An economic adjustment is always a social adjustment. For this reason, at this stage, through fiscal balance, we must meet two objectives: maintain the level of activity and the purchasing power of wages,” he specified.
