Argentina industrial output suffers sharpest drop of year in October

Argentina's industrial production contracted 8.0 percent in October from the same month a year earlier, national statistics agency Indec said on Wednesday, marking the sharpest monthly drop in activity so far this year.

That was more than the median expectation of a 6.5 percent year-on-year decline in a Reuters poll and the ninth straight month of shrinking output, the latest in a string of indicators showing that the recession in Latin America's No. 3 economy is lasting longer than the government initially forecast.

Cumulatively, Argentina's industrial output for the first ten months of 2016 has fallen 4.9 percent compared with the same period last year. The drop in October was primarily driven by a 26.7 percent decline in the textile industry and a 19.1 percent drop in the automotive industry.

President Mauricio Macri has enacted a number of business-friendly reforms to attract investment and stimulate the inflation-plagued economy, but a promised rebound in the second half of 2016 has not yet materialized.

Argentina's economy is expected to drop between 1.5 and 2 percent this year, before rebounding to grow between 3 and 5 percent in 2017. Last week, government data showed economic activity shrank 3.7 percent in September versus a year earlier.