In the last thirteen years, trade between Peru and Brazil grew eight times, said the business manager of the Brazilian Export Promotion Agency (APEX), Ricardo Santana.
"There is an exponential growth in trade between Peru and Brazil, for example, in 2000, our trade amounted to just over U.S. $500 million and last year - thirteen years later- it amounted to 3,900 million, i.e. almost eight times more," he said.
Santana views Peru as a key partner that attracts a lot of businesses each year in these trade missions. "We have about ten missions like this one in the world, and Peru is one of them. We've been doing them for the past four or five years and when we go on a mission to Peru we easily gather more than fifty companies interested in our products. It is very clear for us that Peru is a priority market for Brazil."
"The financial result last year was of 14.5 million dollars in Peru and we only spent two days there. One day only with Peruvian companies and another one with guests from other countries. Obviously, the idea now is to have a bigger number," Santana said.
Meanwhile, the Brazilian ambassador to Peru, Carlos Teixeira Lazary highlighted Peru's potential as a trading partner. "This market offers many opportunities and we are working hard to raise standards in trade facilitation. We have scheduled a series of talks to improve the bureaucratic conditions, border crossing, as well as imports and exports between both countries."
Sustained growth
Óscar Chávez, Senior Economist of Lima's Chamber of Commerce's IEDEP, highlighted Peru's sustained growth in recent years. "We are the country that will grow the most in the region in 2014. We are expected to grow by 5.4%, more than the rest of Latin America. Peru must be the country with the highest growth and, between 2001 and 2010, we were a country with the second highest cumulative growth in the region," he said.
According to Chávez, in this second decade "Peru leads growth and that is very important. Peru is the country with the lowest inflation in the region, we are a country that ensures greater price stability and that has the highest economic growth in Latin America," he said.
Source: Agraria.pe