President Milei denied that Argentina is in recession and questioned the reliability of official activity data, in a television interview aired Sunday, days after JP Morgan cut its 2026 growth forecast for the country to 1.5% and projected a second consecutive quarterly contraction.
"The indicators are throwing out all sorts of things," Milei told journalist Luis Majul on LN+'s La Cornisa, according to La Nación and La Gaceta. "They are built on history. If an economy has a lot of structural changes, the seasonally adjusted figures measure badly. That's why we focus on the trend-cycle indicator." He said the country was at record levels of consumption, exports and output, and added: "We are going to achieve four straight years of growth."
JP Morgan lowered its forecast from 3% after INDEC reported that economic activity fell 2.9% in July from June, the largest monthly decline since April 2020. Analysts Lucila Barbeito and Diego Pereira wrote that they had "expected weak activity data in July," but that the figure "significantly exceeded" their forecast of a roughly 1% drop, according to Infobae. Manufacturing fell 3.6%, construction 4% and commerce 5.5% on a seasonally adjusted basis.
The bank now expects gross domestic product to shrink about 4% annualized in the third quarter, roughly 1% from the previous quarter, following a 0.6% quarterly decline between April and June, La Nación reported. Two consecutive quarters of contraction would meet the common definition of a technical recession, which Milei said has not occurred.
For 2027, JP Morgan forecasts growth of 2.5% and private consumption growth of 0.4%, compared with the 4% growth and 3.4% consumption increase assumed in the budget the government sent to Congress this month. The bank attributed part of July's weakness to fewer working days and disruption from the World Cup.
In the same interview Milei cited more than 500,000 jobs created under his administration and noted that unemployment of 7.9% in the second quarter was below Argentina's historical average of 9.8%. The dispute over the numbers comes as the country risk index has climbed to its highest level in months and the government prepares to pitch Argentina to investors in Paris this week.