PERU | Seeking to boost foreign trade. On 29 August Peru’s foreign trade & tourism minister, Eduardo Ferreyros, announced plans for a series of 13 measures designed to stimulate Peru’s trade with its international partners. Ferreyros said Peru needs to become a more attractive trade partner, by making its products more competitive, and by reducing logistical costs. The initiative is part of the efforts by the government led by President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to lift GDP growth up to 2.8% by the end of the year – a difficult task, given the 1.3% growth recorded in the first six months of the year. But Ferreyros said the government will seek to “improve customs operations, increase the competitivity of logistics services, create mechanisms of inter-institutional co-operation, and promote administrative simplification”.
Logistical failings are to be addressed by measures that will prevent goods from being held in port for too long before being shipped to their destination; while competitivity will be tackled by making the customs process less rigorous, for instance by allowing exports worth up to US$7,500 to be processed under a simplified procedure.
Another significant change is the creation of a new directorate to promote foreign investment in development projects in Peru. Further details on these measures will be released before they are submitted to congress for approval. The constant economic growth posted by Peru in recent years has been a cause for optimism, but lately the domestic economy has suffered a marked slowdown in activity. It seems that the Kuczynski government’s new goal is to bolster economic growth by increasing the country’s exports via this comprehensive programme intended to turn Peru into a competitive player in the global market.
- Rice farmers threaten to strike
On 29 August Colombian rice farmers grouped in the Dignidad Arrocera organisation threatened to stage a national strike if the government does not offer a satisfactory solution to the flooding of the domestic market with foreign rice imports by 6 September. Dignidad Arrocera complains that since the implementation of the 2012 Colombia-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA), Colombia has imported increasing amounts of rice from the US to the point that domestic demand is now flooded and the prices received by local producers is derisory. The group claims that this has resulted in local producers incurring losses of US$338 per hectare sown; and that the US$22 per tonne subsidy offered by the government does not make up for this.