Yesterday, Peru’s Foreign Trade and Tourism Minister Claudia Cornejo stated that the international trade of Peruvian goods grew by 14.9% in the first quarter of 2021. This is a higher rate than that achieved by trade in Latin America, which saw a growth of 9.5%.
This performance is the outcome of the increase in national imports (+17.5%) and exports (+12.6%), which jointly reached the figure of US$21.651 billion between January and March. Besides this, Peru's trade balance surplus now stands at US$630 million.
Miss Cornejo affirmed that the resilience of Peruvian companies and the nation's trade policy, which —added to the rise in the prices of our main export commodities and the normalization of economic activities— favored the foreign trade of goods.
Andina.pe quoted her as saying: "The foreign trade of Latin American goods has been partially recovering from the fall suffered in 2020, as a result of the pandemic. I would like to point out that this recovery is due, among other factors, to the increase in the prices of raw materials exported from the region, as well as a normalization of economic activities notably affected in March 2020 caused by the application of sanitary measures in the region.”
Between January and last March, Peruvian exports grew 12.6% due to higher sales of non-traditional (+17.9%) and traditional (+10.2%) goods. This expansion has stood above the growth of Latin American exports, which in this period increased by 8.8%.
Deputy Foreign Trade Minister Diego Llosa pointed out that national agro-exports grew in March for the eighth consecutive month, leading to an expansion of +13.1% in the first quarter thanks to greater fruit sales (+21%). "In the first quarter of this year, fruit sales grew 21% due to higher volumes and —to a lesser extent— higher export prices of fruits such as grapes, blueberries, and avocados."