Peruvian agricultural exports would grow 3.2% in 2024, according to Adex

For this year, Peru is expected to raise US$10,525 million, according to the director of CIEN-Adex, Edgar Vásquez Vela, which would represent an increase of 3.2% compared to 2023.

It is worth noting that agricultural dispatches achieved an increase of 12.3% in the first two months of the year, resulting in income of US$1,862 million, according to the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Irrigation (Midagri).

Despite the good results of the sector and the positive expectations that arise, Angel ManeroMinister of Agrarian Development and Irrigation, assures that we cannot be satisfied with these indices, which is why a technical group is being organized that will prepare a new agrarian law—which would be in a month.

“The corrections that need to be made in the private sector must be made without fear of criticism and those groups that always oppose everything,” he stressed. In that sense, he acknowledged that they will return tax benefits to agro-export companies, which would once again pay a rate of 15% in Income Tax (IR), instead of the 29.5% assumed by the rest.

Likewise, Julio Pérez Alván, president of Adex, highlighted the positive impact of the already repealed Agrarian Law No. 27360 (‘Chlimper Law’) on the exponential growth of the sector and is confident that new legislation will allow it to continue.

“Lobby against workers”

For Laureano del Castilloexecutive director of the Peruvian Center for Social Studies (CEPES), the reports speak for themselves: “Against the current, after the repeal of the ‘Chlimper Law’, some agricultural businessmen came out saying that this will affect their profitability and the competitiveness of the business, but the results are clear, there has been no major impact, on the contrary, they continue having very good results”, he assured.

The academic maintains that the only explanation is that the lobbies have made it so that, above the interests of the workers, they seek to restore profits to the agro-export companies. “They have had these benefits since 1996, not even from 2000, which was the ‘Chlimper Law’, because the ‘Chlimper Law’ modified the legislative decree of 1996, improving those benefits,” he noted.