Peru

ECONOMIC POLICIES AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES

Figure 9 Primary Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Minerals Activity, 1990

Source: Based on information from Orlando D. Martino, Mineral Industries of Latin America, Washington, September 1988, 110; and Aníbal Cueva García, ed., Gran atlas geográfico del Perú y el mundo, Lima, 1990, 651, 692.

Morning rush hour on Avenida de los Heroes in Lima's low-income, southern district of San Juan de Miraflores
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank

Figure 10 Transportation System, 1991

Trucks passing a construction area on the northern coast-to-jungle Olmos-Corral Quemado road
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank

Market day near Puno
Courtesy World Bank (Ramon Cerra)

Peru's long reliance on a relatively open economy allowed the country to reach a level of income per capita above the average for Latin America at the start of the 1960s but with exceptionally high degrees of poverty and inequality. Its open economy also left the country behind the leading countries of the region in terms of development of entrepreneurship and technology, as well as capacity of the public sector for effective policy implementation. Popular dissatisfaction and pressures for change had objective reasons behind them.

The military government of General Velasco changed the scene completely with its radical reforms of 1968-72. Peru has never been the same since. But the changes did not lead to any sustainable new economic strategy: the old balance was destroyed, but no viable new one was created to replace it. All the governments since Velasco have been trying to find new solutions by reversing their predecessors' policies, so far without notable success.

Data as of September 1992