The industrial activity of Argentina registered a year-on-year growth of 3.6% last March, according to what was reported on Thursday by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec).
Thus, the improvement registered in March implies a strong deceleration with respect to the growth rate of 8.7% year-on-year verified in last February.
It is worth mentioning that in the third month of 2022 year-on-year advances were observed in 12 of the 16 industrial branches included in the indicator. According to official sources, industrial production in March stood at 8.6% above the pre-covid level of February 2020 and only 6.9% of the maximum of September 2017.
#DatoINDEC
The industry grew 3.6% year-on-year in March 2022 and fell 1.9% from the previous month https://t.co/ixgQkYubUq pic.twitter.com/LlrcjrJEsu— INDEC Argentina (@INDECArgentina) May 5, 2022
The industrial branches of weight that registered the greatest expansion were the production of motorcycles and other transport equipment (46.9%), clothing (27.3%), tobacco (22.2%), rubber and plastic (6.8%), machinery and equipment (5.9%), the chemical industry (4.1%) and the automotive sector (2.3%). At the same time, year-on-year decreases were registered in the manufacture of computer and electrical equipment (-6.2%) and furniture (-3.9%), oil refining (-2.8%) and the manufacture of construction materials (-0.6%) .According to official data, industrial production in March showed a decrease of 1.9% compared to the levels of last February and accumulated growth of 3.7% in the first quarter.
The industrial activity of Argentina registered a growth of 15.8% in 2021, ending three years of falls amid the economic recession aggravated by the pandemic. Meanwhile, for 2022, private forecasts are for a slowdown in the rate of expansion of manufacturing production.