Peru’s Finance Minister Alex Contreras on Thursday said historic protests this year had had a “huge” impact on the economy, prompting the ministry to mark down growth forecasts for this year.
(Bloomberg) — Peru’s Finance Minister Alex Contreras on Thursday said historic protests this year had had a “huge” impact on the economy, prompting the ministry to mark down growth forecasts for this year.
Speaking at a press conference in Lima, Contreras said that the Andean nation’s economy would only post a 2.5% expansion in 2023, down from a late February forecast of 3.1%
“In contexts of low growth, we cannot say that the economy is divorced from politics,” Contreras said in a press conference. “Social conflicts had a huge effect on the economy,” Contreras added.
The protests peaked in January demanding the resignation of President Dina Boluarte and continued through February when they began to wane. Almost 70 people died in what Human Rights Watch said this week may have been extrajudicial killings. While the economic impact of the protests has all but disappeared, Peru also faced flooding in March and the possibility of continued heavy rains.
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The unrest had an outsized impact on Peru’s mining, agribusiness and tourism industries, some of which are still being felt.
One of Peru’s largest mining companies said this week that it had almost $1 billion worth of copper stuck at its remote Andean mine due to protests that blocked transportation onto a seaport. MMG’s Las Bambas mine said it would take until the end of the year to transport the copper pile, assuming no new protests.
The airport in the city of Juliaca, near the border with Bolivia, also only reopened this week after deadly protests there in January. Contreras said the region around Juliaca had probably experienced a full-fledged economic depression due to the economic impact of the protests, although official numbers have yet to be released.
Peru experienced two consecutive economic contractions in January and February according to official statistics, the first in almost two years, due to the effect of the protests.
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