Country Risk Analysis: Argentina

INTRODUCTION

Argentina is a South American country, constituted as a federation of twenty-three provinces and an autonomous city. It is second in size on the South American continent to Brazil and eighth in the world. The country is bordered by Paraguay and Bolivia in the north, Brazil and Uruguay in the northeast, and Chile in the west and south. It claims the British overseas territories of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. Argentina also claims a portion of Antarctica, known as Argentine Antarctica, overlapping another claim made by Chile and the British Antarctic Territory.

Argentina has the highest Human Development Index level and the second highest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in purchasing power parity in Latin America after its neighbor Chile and is the 19th largest in the world. The country is currently classified as an Upper-Middle Income Country or as a secondary emerging market by the World Bank. Argentina's nominal GDP makes it the 31st largest economy in the world.

HISTORY

GEOGRAPHY

Second in South America only to Brazil in size and population, Argentina is a plain, rising from the Atlantic to the Chilean border and the towering Andes peaks. Aconcagua (22,834 ft, 6,960 m) is the highest peak in the world outside Asia. Argentina is also bordered by Bolivia and Paraguay on the north and by Uruguay and Brazil on the east. The northern area is the swampy and partly wooded Gran Chaco, bordering on Bolivia and Paraguay. South of that are the rolling, fertile Pampas, which are rich in agriculture and sheep- and cattle-grazing and support most of the population. Next southward is Patagonia, a region of cool, arid steppes with some wooded and fertile sections.

RELIGION

Argentines are predominantly Roman Catholic. Around 93% declare themselves Roman Catholic according to different surveys; the Church estimates an affiliation of 70%. According to...