Julio Velardepresident of the Central Reserve Bank (BCR), estimated a drop of more than 4% in gross domestic product (GDP) last January, due to the social protests that devastated the country.
During Peru Day at the PDAC 2023 mining convention, the head of the Peruvian issuing entity said that, in December 2022, this impact on Peru’s economic growth accounted for 14% of GDP.
As reported by the Bloomberg portal, Velarde anticipated that the result that was expected for the Peruvian economy this 2023 in the projections of last December “probably will not be as good as what we estimate.”
“We were going to grow something more than 3% (in January); we will probably decrease 1.4% in January. We believe February will be much better, but we will see”, he expressed from Canada, during his session “Impact of the sociopolitical context on the Peruvian economy and mining”.
BCRP: GDP recovery with mining
Asked about the results of the Peruvian mining in this period, the head of the BCRP indicated that, if the activity manages to normalize, “waiting even interruptions” as some mines are recovering from the latest protests, the sector could grow by 6, 3% this year, which “would greatly help the recovery” in growth.
“We had a strong expansion of copper production with Quellaveco and hopefully these future projects (in Peri) will materialize and have larger production volumes,” the banker explained.
He also recalled that Peru has been one of the countries that has grown the most in Latin America in the last two decades, in addition to Panama. For this reason, he remarked that, after the sharp economic fall due to the pandemic, the recovery in the country was “extremely fast.” However. he pointed out that after the 2021 elections the rhythm could not be maintained.
“If we compare ourselves with the figures before Covid, the sector not linked to mining and agriculture is 4% above the end of 2021, the primary sector is 3% above. With mining it is 1% higher; it has not contributed as much as expected due to the interruption in the production of exports that some mines have suffered due to the blockades they have had, ”he noted.
Finally, the president of the BCR recalled that private investment fell by 0.5% in 2022, but still specified that it is 15% above the levels of 2019. On the other hand, he stressed that although business expectations remain low , as of February there is a substantial improvement compared to what was seen up to six months ago.
Source: Larepublica
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