Monday, March 16, 2009

Shock Horror! Economists wildly overestimate Peru's GDP figure again

Twobreakfasts' secretary reads the INEI press
release and wonders how to break the news

¡Pero que sorpresa!

Over at Reuters, the economists* polled put Peru's January GDP figure at an average of 4.0%. Meanwhile Bloomberg (who must have bothered to interview one bearish guy) had the average of those polled at 3.4%. As late as last week Peru's Finance Ministry estimated January GDP at 4.5%.

The Peru stats office, INEI, reported the figure two hours ago. Peru's January GDP growth came in at 3.14%, way below 'expert' opinion. In amongst the numbers manufacturing dropped by 2.69%, commerce grew by 2.53% and the building/construction sector upped by 4.5% (which sounds good but is a very disappointing result and way below expectations). Agro dropped by 1.46% and fishery by 21.05%. Mining activity grew by 10.69% (not export prices but oh my, hard landing for Month-over-Month figures coming in that sector in the months to come) and the mining services sector upped 5.99%.

But don't let that worry you, because Twobreakfasts says it's going to be 5% this year, and Carranza says 5% this year, and the Central Bank says 5% this year, and the IMF says 5% this year. I mean, why on earth should you listen to me and ignore all those utterly reliable and impartial sources?

*dumbasses in suits