Demonstrators still congregate in major cities to protest at hardship

The 8.4% growth recorded for the full year follows a 10.9% slump in 2002.

The battered state of the economy is the result of soaring debt after the currency, the peso, was pegged to the dollar in the early 1990s.

The meltdown following a decision to default on the $140bn public debt in January 2002 put millions out of work.

In the year that followed, the country went through four presidents before settling on Nestor Kirchner, the current incumbent, early in 2003.

Back on track?

The engine behind the recovery was the agricultural sector, whose exports benefited from a 70% slide in the value of the peso.

Consumers are also spending more, as the job market begins to recover.

But the 20% contraction between 1998 and 2002 still leaves Argentina's economy in a parlous condition.

Demonstrators angry at the widespread job losses, which put as much as half the population below the poverty line, continue regularly to congregate in Buenos Aires and elsewhere.