The national economy of Argentina is one of the richest and most diversified in Latin America. The country is benefited from a rather positive socio-economical environment, which is delineated by a massive agricultural sector, a relatively highly literate population, a generously enriched with non-renewable resources soil and a diversified industrial base. Despite the fact that Argentina has a promising socio-economical background its economic performance has been very uneven. Periods of economic growth alternated with periods of severe recessions and while its citizens enjoyed high standards of living during the second half of the nineteenth century, the country repealed its positive course and particularly during the late twentieth century fallen behind. Nowadays, Argentina is considered as an upper-middle income country and is one of the G-20 major economies.
Agriculture has traditionally been an important pillar of the Argentinean economy. In 2007 more than one fifth of the national exports were created of unprocessed agricultural primary goods, namely soybeans, wheat and maize. An additional one third was composed of processed agricultural products, such as animal feed, flour and vegetable oils. Furthermore, livestock such as cattle and sheep plays an important role in the economy of the country. Argentina is an exporter of corn, flax, oats, beef, mutton, hides, wool, oilseeds, lemons, grapes, and tobacco and is one of the world’s largest producers of tannin and linseed oil.
Apart from the agriculture sector Argentina has also a variety of natural resources including lead, zinc, copper, iron, petroleum and uranium. The minerals that Argentina has are of local importance and are not adequate to support the national demands.
Although agriculture has traditionally been a significant pillar of the Argentinean economy, currently the service sector is the biggest contributor to the national GDP. The country has a broad service sector, which includes well-developed corporations of financial, insurance, real-estate, transport, tourist and communication services. One of the services sectors that are in the rise is telecommunication boosted by the widespread access of the Argentineans to the mobile telephony (more than 75% of the population) and the Internet (with more than 16 million people online). Finally tourism is also another service sector that is on the rise.
Aside from agriculture and services Argentina has also a robust manufacturing sector. Food processing is the chief manufacturing industry. Other major products are motor vehicles, textiles, chemicals, petrochemicals, and steel.
The aforementioned socio-economical environment is reinforced and sustained by a well educated workforce. Is indicative that the Human Development Index (HDI) of the country is high. HDI measures the human development of a country and is being published by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The factors that are taken into consideration in order to form the aforementioned index are life expectancy, education (measured by adult literacy and gross enrolment in education) and standards of living (measured by purchasing power parity, PPP, income). The prices of the index fluctuate from 0 to 1. Countries with index below 0.5 are characterized as underdeveloped; countries with index between 0.5-0.8 are characterized as medium developed; and countries with indexes more than 0.8 are characterized as highly developed. Argentina had in 2007 a score of 0.866 and can be fairly characterized as a high developed country. Additionally, it is important to state that the country has made significant steps throughout the past two decades as it has developed from 0.793 in 1990 to 0.866 in 2007. Argentina is ranged 49st between 182 countries. Additionally the country is 31th when only education is measured. The aforementioned statistic highlights the fact that the literacy of the country is extremely high and can be the locomotive of development for the country.