Argentina's economic activity grows 0.5% month-on-month in September

Buenos Aires.- Economic activity in Argentina registered a 0.5% increase last September compared to last August, thus stringing together three months of slightly positive performance, official sources reported this Tuesday. The data, released by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec) and which serves as a provisional advance to measure the quarterly variation of the gross domestic product (GDP), also shows an increase of 5% compared to September 2024, the twelfth consecutive year-on-year increase.

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In the ninth month of the current year, the various economic sectors of Argentina operated in a scenario of relative price stability, which in September registered a 2.1% increase compared to August and a slowdown of 31.8% year-on-year. However, demand in various sectors continued to show -as in the previous months- signs of weakness, while the economy was altered by increasing financial volatility in the face of the strong uncertainty generated by the run-up to the legislative elections of last October 26, in which the ruling party finally obtained a wide victory. This climate determined that the expansion of the economy was only 0.5% compared to August. According to the report released this Tuesday, fourteen out of a total of sixteen sectors that contribute to the measurement achieved an advance in September in year-on-year terms, including fishing (58.2%), financial activity (39.7%) and mining (8.1%). But two key sectors of the Argentine economy performed poorly: the manufacturing industry, which fell 1%, and agriculture, which barely advanced 0.8%. The report does not include data on the month-on-month performance of each sector, but, according to data from Indec released days ago, industrial activity registered a 0.1% decrease in September compared to August, while construction rose by only 0.9%. According to data from the statistics institute, economic activity accumulated a 5.2% advance in the first nine months of the year. In 2024, within the context of the severe austerity measures implemented by Javier Milei's government, Argentina's GDP contracted by 1.7%, its worst performance since 2020, when activity had plummeted by 9.9% amid the covid-19 pandemic. According to the private economists consulted monthly by the Central Bank for its expectations report, in 2025 the Argentine economy will grow by 3.9%. "Going forward, some uncertainties were cleared up after the electoral result favored the ruling party, which eased exchange rate tension and seems to restore confidence in the economic model," noted the consultancy Orlando Ferreres in a report. The consultancy pointed out that, "by itself, this will not reactivate the activity, but it offers a more favorable context to restore income, consumption and investment, leading to an exit from the current stagnation".