About Peru
Peru is a Country of 29.4 million people, Peru has rich deposits of copper, silver, gold, lead, zinc, natural gas and petroleum . It is a very diversed country due to climatic, natural and cultural variation of its regions. Center-left president Alan Garcia, who has been in power since June 2006, has aimed to boost economic growth. Peru's economy reflects its varied geography, an arid coastal region, the Andes further inland, and tropical lands bordering Colombia and Brazil. Abundant mineral resources are found mainly in the mountainous areas, and Peru's coastal waters provide excellent fishing grounds. The administration of President Garcia has resisted current spending pressures and has used savings from surging commodity prices accumulated between 2006 and 2008 to invest in infrastructure, pay down public debt and increase assets.
There is no doubt that Peru has achieved significant advances in macroeconomic performance in recent years, with very dynamic GDP growth rates, a stable exchange rate and low inflation. The country's impressive 9.8 percent growth rate in 2008 made it among the fastest-growing economies in the region. This growth was driven by higher world prices for minerals and metals, investor-friendly market policies and the government's aggressive trade liberalization strategies. Although the growth rate fell to 0.9 percent in 2009 in the face of the global recession and lower commodity export prices, Peru's economy has begun to recover and is expected to grow 5.5 percent in 2010. Peru's rapid expansion has helped to reduce the national poverty rate by nearly 15 percent since 2002, to about 36 percent of its total population in 2009.
The country's positive recent growth performance has much to do with the competent monetary and fiscal policy pursued particularly over the last decade, with falling levels of public indebtedness (from 37.8 percent of
GDP in 2006 to 21 percent in 2009) and consistent budget surpluses (2.4 percent of GDP in 2008). This has gone hand in hand with goods and labour market liberalization, trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) opening, and maximization of the revenues from the country's rich natural and mineral resources. Peru also benefits from strengths such as the fairly large size of its market and its sophisticated and rather deep financial sector.
Under Garcia's administration, Peru has also maintained an aggressive trade policy that has allowed it to sign Free Trade Agreements with the United States, Canada, Thailand, Singapore, and China. Peru has also concluded negotiations with the European Union, and begun trade talks with Korea, Japan and others. The US-Peru Trade promotion Agreement entered into force 1 February 2009, opening the way to greater trade and investment between the other contracting states two economies. Peru's main exports are gold, copper, zinc, textiles and fish meal; its major trade partners are the United States, China, Brazil and Chile.
The above information was estructed from Peru's Mining & Metals Investment Guide 2010/2011 By Ernst and Young
