Activity slows down: the consumption indicator fell by 1.7% in February

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In February 2023, the Consumption Indicator (CI) of the Argentine Chamber of Commerce and Services (CAC) showed an increase of 0.8% in the year-on-year comparison, despite marking a decrease of 1.7% compared to the month of January in seasonally adjusted measurement, (that is, discounting the usual seasonal effects of consumption throughout the year).

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This new indicator developed by the CAC reflects the monthly evolution of household consumption in final goods and services. “This poor year-over-year growth seen in February gives continuity to the inversion process exhibited by the IC since mid-2022 and its subsequent stagnation,” the entity said in a statement.

“This dynamic is consistent with a macroeconomy that is already under strain a purchasing power of Argentine families which has shown a new contraction in the second month of the year. In fact, the CI was more than 1% lower than the February pre-pandemic comparison.”

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The clothing and footwear category presented in February an estimated 16.8% year-on-year decline, “discounting once again the loss of dynamism throughout 2022 which has progressively accentuated, accompanied by a relative increase in sector prices in a year-on-year comparison”. Consumption in this category was more than 20% lower than levels prior to the health outage.

On the other hand, the chapter on transport and vehicles demonstrates this an estimated growth of 3.2% in February. Even so, it’s still nearly 4% below pre-pandemic levels. “This takes place in the context of a process of deceleration and cooling of the sector that continues today, with car and motorcycle registrations growing by just 1.8% and 3.3% respectively on an annual basis“.

Leisure and culture still show significant growth rates (with an estimated 26.2% year-on-year increase in February), as a result of the sharp declines recorded following the pandemic and a slower reopening and recovery process than in other sectors.

As regards the housing, rental and public services sector, this showed an estimated progress of 4.8% in the second month of the year, ranking over 15% higher than pre-health outage levels.

As for the rest of the items, these recorded an estimated 2% year-on-year contraction in February, positioning themselves at levels more than 5% lower than the comparison with 2019.

AQ

Source: Clarin

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