The Peruvian port of Chancay, which will be inaugurated next Thursday under the watchful eye of Chinese President Xi Jinping, will become the jewel of the New Silk Road in South America, an infrastructure that represents the tip of the iceberg of investment the Asian giant in Peru, also the scene of the APEC summit.
The coastal town of Chancay, north of Limawill this month become the new axis of regional trade since the infrastructure built by the Chinese state company Cosco Shipping, with a investment of 1.3 billion dollars, will attract the largest container ships and will reduce the maritime journey to China by 12 days.
“The Asia-Pacific region is the most dynamic in the worldthere is more than 60% of global GDPthis will certainly have a very positive impact,” the president of the Association of Exporters (Adex), Julio Pérez Alván, told EFE.
He added that the inauguration of the port of Chancay must become “something concrete” like the job creation in the northern corridor of Lima, which will extend to Ancón, where a new industrial park is under construction.
Exports taking off thanks to prices
Pérez Alván recalled that China is Peru’s main trading partner and the country with which 353 micro and small enterprises export, with a total of 386 productswhich contributes to a “double effect” of job creation and formalization of the economy.
ADEX projects that Peru’s total exports will increase this year between 14% and 15%largely due to the rise in the international price of metals, which constitutes a “fairly large” percentagethe manager remarked.
In a report published until last September, the exporters’ union indicated that the Peruvian trade balance closed with a surplus of 13.632 million dollars, with exports for 53.651 million dollars and imports for 40.019 million dollars.
For its part, the Foreign Trade Company of Peru (Comex) specified that sales of goods to China amounted to a total of $14.26 billion through July finally, while purchases amounted to 8.238 million dollars.
Greater investments in the mining sector
Furthermore, Chinese investments in Peru reached $38.8 billion between 2001 and 2023with a primary interest in mining (43%), fishing (21%), power generation and distribution (13%), finance (9%), oil and gas (9%) and finally ports (4%).
Exactly, this week, Zijin Mining, one of China’s largest gold and copper producersannounced that it had obtained the necessary authorizations to exploit the La Arena gold mine, in northern Peru, for 245 million dollars.
The largest mining investment is centered in Las Bambas, a copper mine located in the southern department of Apurímac of the MMG company (controlled by the state-owned China Minmetals Corporation), which contributes 1% to Peruvian GDP.
Since 2010, Peru has had a free trade agreement with Chinawhich now seeks to optimize the direct challenges of transport, telecommunications and rail, precisely within the framework of APEC summit which begins this Sunday in Lima.
