Argentina's economy loses ground

Argentina's economy contracted 0.8 percent late this year, amid weaker industrial output and weaker exports, authorities said Monday.
The negative growth in the last four months of the year continued a downward trend after a 0.8 percent rise in the first four months, followed by 0.0 stagnation in the second four, the Statistics and Census Office (INDEC) said.
The International Monetary Fund said earlier this month that Argentina, censured for failing to meet its statistical quality standards, was making progress in improving the data but more was needed.
Argentina had vastly underreported inflation and skewed gross domestic product figures for years, in part for domestic political reasons and also because it had some domestic and foreign debt service payments linked to the key figures.