Economic activity grew 2.9% year-on-year in January
, which showed an accelerated expansion of national production at the beginning of the present year, BBVA Research reported on Wednesday.
According to a report from the private banking organization, the main support for this expansion was the non-primary activity of GDP, which grew 2.8%.
Within this framework, the growth of sectors: trade (+2.3%) and accommodation-restaurants (+9.2%) stood out. These were partially offset by the decline in construction (-0.6%) and financial services (-7.0%).
On the other hand, the primary component of GDP rose by 1.8% in January, after remaining in negative territory for two consecutive months.
Concerning extractive activities, those that showed greater dynamism were hydrocarbons (+9.8%) and metal mining (+3.6%).
"In seasonally adjusted terms, the economy also showed a favorable performance last January. According to the seasonally adjusted series reported by the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI), production rose by 1.4% in January (it did so by 0.4% in December)," BBVA specified.
Similarly, the entity specified that the most frequent indicators available for February show mixed results.
On the one hand, electricity production accelerated in year-on-year terms (+4% compared to +1.7% in January), favored by a low comparison base in the same month of the previous year. As is known, restrictions were tightened in February 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On the other hand, domestic cement consumption and public investment registered contractions in the second month of this year.
For its part, the investment indicator with high-frequency data crafted by BBVA Research reveals that, so far in March, private investment spending continues slowing down.
This trend is in line with the weakness of business confidence, which in its last reading in January 2022 registered 45 points (pessimistic zone).