The Asian crisis, on the other hand, which extended to all markets in the area, led to a period of recession and a steep rise in interest rates, without however causing a fall in domestic demand. The real catastrophe occurred in conjunction with the Brazilian crisis, which caused a massive flow of imports from the neighboring country and a simultaneous flow of exports, which was followed by an increase in the external deficit and, of course, a decline in industrial productivity.

The immediate repercussions have been stemmed by some government measures, from monetary stability to tax and labor reforms, to increased flexibility of the labor market to more effective tax collection. However, the forced parity of the Argentine peso with the dollar worsened the economic situation in a short time, generating a new wave of crisis: the country therefore had to resort to IMF and give extraordinary powers to the government (especially in the matter of cuts to recover funds). In 2001, the freezing of bank deposits, designed to prevent excessive capital flight abroad, caused protests to explode in the squares, where strikes, looting and clashes with the police and the army took place and at the end of the such as the Argentine president de la Rúa he was forced to resign. Over the following years, in which no less than 4 presidents took turns, the government tried the path of revaluation of the peso (definitively disconnected from the dollar in 2002), freezing foreign debts. After two years of serious instability, in 2003 the government managed to regain the confidence of the international community and find a solution to the crisis. A series of interventions have been launched such as the renegotiation of the IMF loan, the fight against hunger, the relaunch of MERCOSUR and participation in the South American Community of Nations. At first sight, it was the exchange rate parity with the dollar that was accused. The continuing link between the national currency and the US dollar had in fact proved counterproductive, in the distance, since the economies of the countries concerned were not integrated at all. As a country of South America defined by historyaah, com, Argentina, in fact, showed that it had a relatively closed system, which was aimed at a range of partners that included, in addition to the United States, also other countries, contrary to what had happened for all the other states that had chosen to “dollarize ”Their coins (such as Ecuador or El Salvador).

But strong responsibility for Argentina’s economic failure was also attributed to the internal ruling class, unable to create a social pact that would guarantee institutional stability and at the same time promote prudent and far-sighted economic policies. The effects of this crisis have reverberated strongly above all on fixed income earners, that is to say on the middle and lower-middle classes, overwhelmed by inflation and unemployment, manifesting themselves especially in the urban context, where the imbalances were more marked and the gap between rich and poor deeper. First of all, the capital Buenos Aires was hit, torn apart by the emergence of an increasingly aggressive crime, but gradually the wave also hit the weak and peripheral areas, making the gap between the Andean region, the Gran Chaco and the Western Pampas compared to the economically more developed regions. However, in the two-year period 2005-2008 there was a new surge in GDP growth rates (8.5% in 2006, in 2009 it reached a national value of US $ 310,065 million and a GDP per capita US $ 7,726), thanks above all to the newfound vitality of sectors such as construction and mechanical engineering as well as to the increase in private consumption; other sectors that have seen a notable development have been agriculture and tourism. In addition, in 2006, the government was able to pay off the debt for the period 2006-2008 with the IMF. However, the imbalances between the various regions of the country remained significant, both as regards economic activities and as regards transport and infrastructure: in the provinces of Buenos Aires, Córdoba and Santa Fe (which together affect a fifth of the territory), two thirds of the population, 80% of industrial production and 90% of agricultural production are concentrated; while in some provinces of Patagonia, there are high percentages of citizens living below the poverty line in the Northeast and Northeast regions. These differences sharpen the contrasts between central government and less developed regions. Inflation remains high (8.6% in 2008), while the unemployment rate has dropped, from 20.8% in 2002 to 8% in 2008. In addition, the debt situations towards the countries belonging to the to the Paris Club (the governments of industrial countries) to which the country owes over US $ 6 billion and to the holders of securities (the so-called tango bonds) with a nominal value of around US $ 20 billion, which were not traded in the plan conversion of 2005, following the insolvency of 2001.