ARGENTINA | Growth slows. The economy expanded by 8.4% in the first quarter on a year earlier, according to the national statistics institute, Indec. This is a good performance but far less impressive than it appears. Firstly, GDP grew by just 0.6% on the final quarter of 2007, the lowest quarter-on-quarter growth since the financial crisis of 2002-2003. Secondly, the prospect for second-quarter growth is bleak as this will take into account the loss of agricultural export earnings as a result of the dispute between the government and the farming unions. Private analysts are predicting that the dispute could reduce annual GDP growth by up to two percentage points to 5%-6% in 2008, down from 8.5% in 2007.
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