Almost half of Argentina's economy is off the books. | HighBeam Business: Arrive Prepared

Almost half of Argentina's economy is off the books. | HighBeam Business: Arrive Prepared

Buenos Aires, Oct 04, 2002 (EFE via COMTEX)

Almost half of Argentina's economic activity is in the "informal" sector, which leads to higher levels of tax evasion and diverts large sums of money from the banking system, the press reported Friday.

The economy's tendency to move off the books began in 1995 and accelerated over the past two years, according a study by the director of the Latin American Economic Investigations Foundation Juan Bour cited Friday in Clarin, a Buenos Aires daily.

In the mid-1990s, 30 percent of Argentina's economy was in the informal sector, but now almost half of all economic activity takes place underground, he noted.…

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