That the international scenario has changed abruptly is not news for the Argentine economy, used to dealing with sudden recalculations in its roadmap. By now, economic decision makers have already built unpredictability and disruption into their routine. For example, the brutal drop in the level of activity in 2020, the result of the anti-pandemic measures (-9.5% over the already depressed level of 2019) but above all of the little containment capacity of a State that he squeezed his meager resources and stopped halfway.
Almost without international reserves, with tax pressure at historic levels and very rigid spending, the response did not help offset the collapse of the economy. But that itself helped make the rebound equally miraculous: +10.5% in the context of uncertainty in the debt chapter and an electrifying election year.
The three. The inertia at the end of the year seems to have reached its ceiling, despite the fact that most forecasts predict that the economy will be able to grow around 3% this year. For Orlando Ferreres, the projection it makes for 2022 shows 3.5% GDP growth with an international situation that will also conspire against a faster recovery. “The COVID problem was overcome and now comes the residue: international inflation and rising energy prices, in addition to the problems of the Russian conflict that also affect Argentina,” he explains. And by way of examples, he cites the foreign exchange trap that affects imports, inflation and the persistent fiscal imbalance.
Other economists, such as the former Vice Minister of Economy Juan J. Llachassign the tumultuous international scenario a lower weight in the menu of difficulties faced by the economies of the region: only 20% of the problems can be attributed to the consequences of the war in Ukraine and the rest to internal imbalances. In the Argentine case, they are also distortions that were accentuated during the pandemic and now tend to be corrected in the worst way: with the few nuances with which market mechanisms do it. For this year, Llach projects a local growth of 2.5% against 3.8% in the world and 2.6% in the region. But the amplitude of the Argentine fall and recovery was much greater, almost 50% more in both sections than the Latin American average.. And in this context, an additional alert is added: Brazil. The growth of the neighboring giant during 2021 (+4.7%) with all that it drags in local production, will fall almost to 0 this year, totaling a growth rate (+0.6%) for the four-year period 2020-2023 which would be half of the very lean Argentine (+1.1%), well below the world (2.7%) and a quarter of the Chinese locomotive (+5.1%). A gap that widens.
ups and downs. Camilo Tiscorniadirector of C&T Economic Advisorsfocuses this apparent slowdown in activity in the year-on-year comparisons made with the depressed 2020 and the almost normalized 2021. “In January, activity suffered (-0.5%) as a result of the resurgence of COVID, in February it rebounded and in March it remained stable. But what we see in April is that it is already hitting that the harvest will be less than last year due to the drought and the restrictions on imports by the Central Bank, “he explains. In addition, add to this ceiling the promised rise in the interest rate and the fiscal adjustment (surely through higher rates) that will come soon. “Even so, we calculate that the year will end 2.7% above the past. In conclusion, a bad year in terms of activity that is only compensated by the previous drag, which we calculate around 4%”, he defines.
Data. It is also noteworthy that the commercial exchange showed irregular peaks in these months of ups and downs. Federico Vacalebre, a professor at UCEMA points out that, last February, there were exports for US$6,443 million and imports for US$5,634 million, which defined a surplus in the trade balance of US$809 million. “Thus, the year-on-year variation in exports is 35% (20% is explained by price variations and a 12% increase in quantities), with the category Fuels and energy (+116%) and Primary products (+ 72%) the items with the highest annual increases“, Explain.
For its part, the year-on-year variation in imports was in the order of 52% (18% rise in prices and 27% in quantities), with Fuels and lubricants being the import item that increased the most since February 2021(+ 421%).
A danger signal for the projections of a year that started with abrupt jumps in the price of gas and oil.
Going to a more focused analysis, Vacalebre points out with respect to the activity figures, in the fourth quarter of 2021, the GDP was 8.6% higher than a year ago, according to INDEC, with exports (+23% , year-on-year) and investment (+13%, year-on-year), the demand components with the greatest increases. But in his opinion, the most relevant or descriptive were the definitive data on the evolution of economic activity during the past year. “The recovery of GDP (compared to the 9.9% drop it had suffered in 2020) implies: that, on average, during 2021, the economy was at a lower level (-0.6%) than in 2019 ; and that even the data for the last quarter show that the economy closed the year at a level somewhat higher than that of the third quarter of 2019”, he points out. And his explanation for this new “saw” in the long history of economic decoupling lies in the fact that investment and public consumption are 16.5% and 8% above average for the same period of comparison; while private consumption and exports closed last year 3% below the values of the third quarter of 2019. “In other words, there are two groups of components of aggregate demand with opposite dynamics (or at least with speeds of growth). different recovery): public consumption-investment, on the one hand, and private consumption-exports, on the other.
Will a new crack have been forged in the coming economy? A question with an open answer that will play its own game in a year in which inflation and political uncertainty will shape expectations to determine whether the Argentine economy will be able to grow again, at least on par with its neighbors.
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