The economy continued to decline at the start of the year and deepened the contraction it had seen since late 2023. In January, the monthly estimator of economic activity had a decrease of 4.3% compared to the same month last year and 1.2% compared to the month of December in the seasonally adjusted measurement detected this afternoon by the National Institute of Statistics and Census.
Regard it is the third consecutive time that the economic indicator presents negative results. It thus accumulates a contraction of 6.1% between November, December and January.
“The year begins, in line with expectations, accentuating the decline in the last quarter of 2023,” commented the economist of the consultancy firm Ledesma, Gabriel Caamaño.
In relation to the same month of 2023, only five sectors of activity that make up the EMAE were recorded go up in January among which agriculture, livestock, hunting and forestry (11.1%) and mining (5.2%) stand out. The agricultural, livestock, hunting and forestry sector (11.1%) was in turn the one with the greatest positive impact on the interannual variation, followed by the mining sector (5.2%).
However, there were ten sectors that blamed declines in the year-on-year comparisonamong which they stand out construction (16.9% y/y), fishing (13.5% y/y) and financial intermediation (12.6% y/y). Furthermore, according to official data, industry fell by 11.3% and trade fell by 8.2% over the past year. They contribute 2.7 percentage points to the year-on-year decline in EMAE.
According to the survey of market expectations prepared by the Central Bank, in the first quarter of the year the economy would record a decline of 3.7%. This means that with the January data (-4.3%) activity should rebound in the next two months.
“In three consecutive months of decline since October 2023, economic activity has declined by nearly 6%. To find a larger slide, we need to go to the start of the pandemic or post-STEP 2019,” he commented Caamaño.
For his part, Lorenzo Sigault Graviña, economist at Equilibra, stated that: “The drop in inflation is greater than expected, but so is that in activity.”
Source: Clarin
