translated from Spanish: Economic activity fell 2.6% during February

In February, economic activity fell 2.6% compared to the same month last year and 1% compared to January, as reported on Thursday by the National Institute of Statistics and Census (Indec). Thus, the Monthly Estimator of Economic Activity (EMAE) was retracted 2.4% in the first half of the year.

By sector of activity, six of them grew year-on-year in February, including construction growth with an increase of 11.7% year-on-year, followed by 3.5% in Financial Intermediation, 3.4% in Trade, and 1.6% in Industry. The latter showed lower growth due to several plant stops scheduled in the month. In addition, the Agricultural sector grew, with 0.7% year-on-year; and Real Estate, business and rental activities 1% year-on-year, with the second increase after eleven months in low.

As in previous months, the biggest retractions took effect in Hotels and Restaurants, with 38.2% year-on-year, and “Other service activities” 17.7%, both activities affected by the pandemic. Other items that went down were Mines and quarries with 9.8% year-on-year; Electricity, Gas and Water, 8.7%; Public Administration, 5.4%; Teaching 3.3; Health 0.7%.
For his part, the Minister of Productive Development, Matías Kulfas, stated that we must “take care of the revival of the economy that lives in Argentina” and confirmed the national government’s decision to move forward with the “plans and programs” to put the country back on its feet.
“Argentina is not exempt from the difficulties of coronavirus and the crisis that have been generated internationally,” Kulfas recently said, stressing that the pandemic will not stop “the strategies, plans and programmes for productive and technological development to put the country to its feet.”

In addition, he stressed that “the first industrial data in March are encouraging”, after learning about the indicators of construction activity and industrial production in February, which showed a year-on-year improvement of 22.7% and 1.6%, respectively. “The first industrial data in March are encouraging; of course the comparison against 2020 is now going to give very high product that we already compare against pandemic months; still, comparing against 2019 the data are positive,” Kulfas said, finally, recalling that March 2020 “had 10 days of strict quarantine, where economic activity was almost completely stopped.”
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Original source in Spanish