'The international crisis is affecting Argentina,' De Mendiguren

The head of the Argentine Industrial Union (UIA), José Ignacio de Mendiguren, warned today that Argentina “is starting to be affected” by the global financial crisis, furthering that the country “is not protected” against the situation.

The UIA head reflected on the subject during a radio interview this morning, where he furthered that, “the economic situation in the region had been coming along solidly, but since about two or three weeks ago, we’ve started to see problems here.”

De Mendiguren then stated, "The issue is that Argentina is not well protected to face the international crisis. We are not safeguarded."

The union leader went on to say that the impact of the crisis “forces us to monitor the situation everyday,” focusing on local industry, particularly that of Brazil.

“The worst case scenario would be if growth in Brazil began to slow,” stated the UIA head.

Brazil trades regularly with Argentina, so how the crisis affects their economy “is very important to us. We pay a lot of attention to what goes on,” explained De Mendiguren.

Worries over movements in the Argentine economy had started to surface in recent days, as Buenos Aires stocks experienced dramatic losses due to local economic factors, including concerns over a default in Greece and worries over a downturn in the Brazilian economy.