Argentina's economy shrinks 1.5% in April after March rebound

Argentina's economic activity contracted by 1.5% in April, reversing the gains seen in March, according to seasonally adjusted data from the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec).

The report revealed a mixed performance across sectors. Mining and quarrying led the growth with a 17.1% year-on-year increase, followed by agriculture, livestock, hunting, and forestry, which grew by 10.9%. Together, these sectors contributed 1.8 percentage points to the overall year-on-year growth.

However, eight sectors experienced declines. Fishing saw the sharpest drop at 28.4% year-on-year. Manufacturing and wholesale and retail trade also contracted, collectively reducing the indicator's year-on-year variation by 0.9 percentage points.

Economists characterized the economic trend as erratic, with a "sawtooth" pattern of ups and downs in the seasonally adjusted series. While the trend-cycle series showed a modest 0.3% advance in April, indicating an annualized growth rate around 2%, economists noted that this growth is concentrated in a few primary sectors. Manufacturing and construction, for instance, saw declines, suggesting that much of the economy remains stagnant despite the overall positive figures.