Three years ago, as Argentina began to emerge from its most severe economic crisis, economists said it would not last. It was still in default with creditors, no new investment was coming in and existing spare capacity in the economy would therefore soon disappear.

They were wrong. This month, for the 37th consecutive month, figures showed positive growth. Last week the government confirmed that the economy expanded an impressive 10.1 per cent in the second quarter compared with the same period last year, and it grew at about 9 per cent a year for the past two years.