up huge
external debts, inflation had reached 200% per month, and output was
plummeting. To combat the economic crisis, the government embarked
on a path of trade liberalization, deregulation, and privatization.
In 1991, it implemented radical monetary reforms which pegged the
peso to the US dollar and limited the growth in the monetary base by
law to the growth in reserves. Inflation fell sharply in subsequent
years. The Mexican peso crisis produced capital flight, the loss of
banking system deposits, and a severe, but short-lived, recession in
1995; a series of reforms to bolster the domestic banking system
followed. Real GDP growth recovered strongly, reaching almost 9% in
1997. In 1998, increasing investor anxiety over Brazil, its largest
trading partner, produced the highest domestic interest rates in
more than three years and slowed growth to 4.3%. Despite the
relatively high level of growth in recent years, double-digit
unemployment rates have persisted, largely because of rigidities in
Argentina's labor laws.

GDP: purchasing power parity--$374 billion (1998 est.)

GDP--real growth rate: 4.3% (1998 est.)

GDP--per capita: purchasing power parity?$10,300 (1998 est.)

GDP--composition by sector:
agriculture: 7%
industry: 37%
services: 56% (1997 est.)

Population below poverty line: 25.5% (1991 est.)

Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: NA%
highest 10%: NA%

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 1% (1998 est.)

Labor force: 14 million (1997)

Labor force--by occupation: agriculture 12%, industry 31%,
services 57% (1985 est.)

Unemployment rate: 12% (October 1998)

Budget:
revenues: $56 billion
expenditures: $60 billion, including capital expenditures of $4
billion (1998 est.)

Industries: food processing, motor vehicles, consumer durables,
textiles, chemicals and petrochemicals, printing, metallurgy, steel

Industrial production growth rate: 2% (1998)

Electricity--production: 64.669 billion kWh (1996)

Electricity--production by source:
fossil fuel: 45%
hydro: 44.3%
nuclear: 10.7%
other: 0% (1996)

Electricity--consumption: 67.509 billion kWh (1996)

Electricity--exports: 330 million kWh (1996)

Electricity--imports: 3.17 billion kWh (1996)

Agriculture--products: sunflower seeds, lemons, soybeans, grapes,
corn, tobacco, peanuts, tea, wheat; livestock

Exports: $26 billion (f.o.b., 1998 est.)