MEF maintains a growth forecast of 2.5% in 2023 despite the impact of the El Niño Phenomenon

Despite the possible effects of an El Niño Phenomenon towards the last part of the year, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Alex Contreras, maintained the Peruvian GDP growth forecast at 2.5% for 2023, a figure that was anticipated a year ago. month.

In dialogue with RPP Noticias, the head of the MEF acknowledged that Peru will be one of the countries, economically, most affected in the region by the occurrence of the meteorological phenomenon.

“The biggest impact is in terms of infrastructure. At this time, we are preparing assuming that the FEN will be very strong. We are going to deploy resources and there is a task group that is discussing the additional measures that we are going to launch, in addition to those of two months ago. With the previous situation of the Yaku we already have a significant improvement in the operational capacity and what we want is to raise it quickly to minimize the social and infrastructure damage,” he said.

In this sense, the minister said that, regarding the visit of the IDB and the president of the World Bank, the risks of Peru being one of the countries most affected by the FEN globally were evaluated. As recalled, the previous FEN occurred in 2017.

“We need to prepare for that. The historical impact of the phenomenon in Peru has been between 0.2% and 3% of GDP, with an average of 2%. As for the damage to the infrastructure -so that the population becomes a idea-, the updated cost of Reconstruction with Changes (ARCC) is S/50,000 million, added to the loss of life,” he added.

Unlike Minister Contreras, various multilateral organizations recently cut their economic growth forecasts for Peru in 2023. For example, the OECD lowered it from 2.6% to 1.7%; meanwhile, the World Bank reduced from 2.4% to 2.2%.