Chilean economy grew by a mere 2.7% in October

SANTIAGO.– According to information released today by the Central Bank, he Chilean economy grew by 2.7% in October when compared to the same month of the previous year.

However, the market had forecasted a Monthly Economic Activity Index (Imacec) of around 3.7% for the tenth month of 2008.

With this new data, the cumulative growth of the Chilean economy for the first ten months of this year falls at around 4%.

"The deseasonalized series decreased by 0.5% with respect to the preceding month, while the tendency cycle registered an annualized expansion of around 3.5%", stated the memo released by the issuing entity.

The rate is lower than the 4.3% of October of 2007 and of September of this year, when local economic activity grew by 5.5%.

In 2007, the Chilean economy expanded by 5.1%. For this year, the Central Bank forecasts that the GDP will fall within a range of 4.0 to 4.5%, according to the most current update released in November.