BUENOS AIRES, Dec 16 (Reuters) – Argentina’s gross domestic product contracted 10.2% in the third quarter of 2020 versus the same 2019 period, the government’s Indec statistics agency said on Wednesday, amid uncertainty about a possible retightening of COVID-19 lockdown measures.

Many restrictions have been relaxed since the country locked down against the pandemic in late March. The government expects a recovery to begin in the first half of next year and for gross domestic product to clock 5% growth in full-year 2021.

“Companies in every industry are having trouble finding basic materials needed to produce and to sell. This is still constraining the offer in the economy,” said Mariano Sardans, head of Buenos Aires-based FDI Wealth Management.

“But when you go out to the street, you can see that a recovery is taking place compared with a very low base earlier in the year when people were basically at home doing nothing,” Sardans added.

With the central bank printing pesos to help fund the Treasury and pay for COVID-19 relief programs, consumer prices rose 3.2% in November and 30.9% in the first 11 months of the year, according to government data released on Tuesday.

Recoveries throughout Latin America are under threat from a fresh rise in COVID-19 cases, particularly in Brazil, Mexico and Chile, Capital Economics said in a note.

“Stringent restrictions and high caseloads suggest that economic activity in the region will probably get worse before it gets better,” it said. (Reporting by Hugh Bronstein and Walter Bianshi; additional reporting by Jorge Otaola; editing by Chris Reese and Jonathan Oatis).

Fuente: Reuters