Argentinian ministers have blamed an unrepresentative opposition for Thursday’s paralysing general strike.

The national stoppage shut down air, train and bus traffic, closed businesses and ports and emptied classrooms.

It also stopped all non-emergency hospital procedures and left rubbish uncollected in emptied streets.

The 24-hour strike was led by a breakaway dissident section of the CGT union federation, which spilt in 2012 over support for the government.

In the face of 30 per cent inflation, the striking trade union leaders want higher pay, lower taxes and millions of dollars they say are owed to union-run healthcare providers, although the government disputes the debt to the health funds.

Cabinet Chief Jorge Capitanich dismissed the strike as “a huge blockade” led by trade union leaders loyal to Peronist Party politicians.

But Juan Carlos Schmid, who leads dredgers and navigators’ union Dragybal, denied that, claiming that street barricades had been erected by non-union left-wing groups and saying that that even pro-government unions had joined the strike.

He claimed more than a million workers had stayed home.

Dissident CGT secretary-general Hugo Moyano vowed more strikes in future if the government didn’t answer union demands.

Argentinians face price rises of as much as 500 per cent as the government withdraws energy subsidies paid since the last economic crash in 2002.

The Economy Ministry aims to redirect money to construction loans, university scholarships and cash welfare payments to the poor.