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Buenos Aires (AFP)

Argentina is in recession after it's economy shrank by 3.5 percent during the third trimester of 2018, the state statistics bureau said on Tuesday.

It was the second such shrinkage in a row after the economy shrank 4.0 percent in the second quarter, with respect to the same period a year ago.

Gross domestic product is down by 1.4 percent from January to September compared with 2017.

The hardest hit sectors were business (down 8.9 percent), fishing (-7.3 percent) and manufacturing (-6.6). But finance was up by 5.1 percent.

Argentina has been gripped by an economic crisis this year that forced President Mauricio Macri to agree a $56 billion bailout loan with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

It came as confidence in the peso crumbled, sending the currency into a freefall that saw it lose half its value against the dollar.

The IMF predicts that Argentina's economy will shrink by 2.6 percent this year and another 1.6 percent in 2019.

? 2018 AFP