The economy started the year with positive numbers but growth slowed

This was reported by Indec in its Monthly Estimator of Economic Activity (EMAE) published this Thursday. Although these numbers reflect a growing economy, It’s milder than a month ago: In December the monthly advance had been 1.8% and the year-on-year increase was 3.3%.

This would indicate that the economy is moving, albeit at a slower pace. The Gross Domestic Product in 2025 ended with an expansion of 4.4%, the statistical organization had reported last week.

The Government assured that, with this monthly activity data, the economy is at its peak. “new all-time high”, said the Minister of Economy Luis Caputosomething that can be seen in the historical line of the EMAE carried out by Indec.

The economy has been moving for some time with two very different profiles. In one sector, the activities that took the best part of the economic development of the last two years are cut. According to the EMAE, the agriculture grew 25.1% in the last year. With less weight in the total sampling, fishing rose 50%.

The exploitation of mines and quarries (that is, mining and hydrocarbon activity) with 9.6%; followed by Financial Intermediation, i.e. banks, with 7.7%. Transportation and communications is one of the sectors that can show an improvement in the last twelve months, although limited: 2.3%.

On the other hand, the hardest hit sectors continue to be Tradewhich between January 2025 and January of this year fell 3.2% and the manufacturing industry, which fell 2.6%. Public Administration and Defense, Electricity, gas and water and Hotels and restaurants also had a contraction.

The industry went through all of 2024 with annual falls that reached up to 20%. It was able to reverse the sign and show positive interannual data in the first half of 2025, but from that moment on it fell again every month.

Construction, for its part, also experienced a complete collapse in 2024, with losses of up to 26% year-on-year. 2025 was more irregular, with 9 months of annual growth data. In January it continued with an improvement of 0.5%, although it still did not manage to recover all the lost ground.

Among the winners, agriculture only had a slight drop in one month (August of last year, 0.6%) in the last two years, which marks the takeoff of the sector. After a very bad 2023, it expanded up to a record of 96% year-on-year in May 2024. All of 2025 had more moderate annual advances although it closed the year with an expansion of 30.1% in December.

While mining and energy activity depended less on the change of Government and the new direction that Javier Milei gave to the economy. Every month of 2023, 2024 and 2025 recorded year-on-year growth.