AFTER a decade of growth, Argentina faces a sharp decline this year as industrial output falls and one of the world’s highest inflation rates hits consumer spending and new investment.

    The economy had grown steadily since recovering from a 2001-2003 debt crisis and it expanded 3 percent last year but it stumbled in the fourth quarter and likely slid into a recession at the start of this year.

    That is now expected to drag on for most or all of 2014.

    Critics have for years predicted that President Cristina Fernandez’s policies would push the economy into recession.

    A devaluation of the peso currency and a hike in interest rates in January worsened a new weakness in consumer spending, a pillar of the economy that had helped it withstand external shocks like the 2009 financial crisis.

    The measures have hit spending and prompted economists to revise downwards their already bleak forecasts for 2014.

    The consensus view now is that the economy will shrink around 1 percent, the first full-year contraction since the debt crisis, when Argentina defaulted on US$100 billion.

    Output contracted 4.4 percent in 2001 and a stunning 10.9 percent the following year but since then has grown at an average of 6.2 percent a year.

    “We were already doing badly but the devaluation of January has made the situation even more critical,” said former central bank chief Rodolfo Rossi. “There is no confidence among firms and workers are losing ever more purchasing power.”

    Retailers are feeling the squeeze. “Sales have plummeted, especially for anything that is not a basic need, like furniture,” said Debora Rosenfeld, working in a Buenos Aires store that sells chairs, tables and sofas. Its revenue has fallen 30-40 percent this year.

    “No one has come in the store today,” she said one afternoon last week, adding that the owner was moving the business to a cheaper location.

    (SD-Agencies)