Chilean industrial output fell for a seventh straight month, copper output declined for the 10th month running and the unemployment rate hit a near 4-year high as an economic downturn tightented its grip on the country, data showed on Thursday.
Industrial production fell 11.1 percent in April compared with the same month a year earlier, accelerating its pace of decline after a 7.1 percent tumble in March, the National Statistics Institute (INE) said, citing lower output of food, drink, non-metallic minerals and wood products.
It also cited the fact there was one fewer working day in the month. Eight economists and analysts polled by Reuters had predicted a median decline of 8.7 percent. While copper output fell for a 10th month running, down 1.3 percent in April to 425,894 tonnes compared with a year earlier, the pace of the fall slowed from a 5.9 percent fall in March.
Output of molybdenum, a copper by-product used to strengthen specialty steels, meanwhile rose 8.7 percent to 2,611 tonnes compared with a year earlier. "The slower industrial rhythm during part of 2008 and in 2009 continues to be the result of lower external demand and a slower pace of domestic economic activity," the INE said in a statement, highlighting the impact of a disease that has hammered the local salmon industry. In April 2008, industrial output rose 4.4 percent from a year earlier.
JOBLESS HIGHEST SINCE 2005 Chile's jobless rate for the February-to-April period was 9.8 percent, above the 9.2 percent rate in the January-to-March period reported last month, the National Statistics Institute (INE) said on Thursday.
The jobless result was above the 9.6 percent median forecast of eight economists polled by Reuters. The unemployment rate previously reported for the February-to-April period a year earlier was 7.6 percent. The jobless rate was the highest since the July-to-September period in 2005, the INE said.
Like its peers in Latin America, Chile's economy has slowed sharply in recent months as the global economic crisis has choked demand at home and abroad. The Chilean government announced a $4 billion anti-crisis fiscal stimulus package in January aimed at boosting sagging domestic demand, increasing productive capacity, creating jobs and averting recession as it fights a slowdown.
But Chile's gross domestic product contracted 2.1 percent in the first quarter compared with the same period last year, and the central bank this month slashed its 2009 gross domestic product forecast to a range between a 0.75 percent contraction and a 0.25 percent expansion.
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