stated that illegal mining accounts for around 2.7% of Peru's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and actions will be taken to ensure full traceability of exported minerals.
He reported that 70,801 interventions have been carried out so far this year, targeting the transport of minerals and chemical inputs, leading to the seizure of 1,274,000 tons of chemical inputs and 10,555 tons of raw material containing minerals.
Likewise, he noted that 143 processing plants have been inspected between January and June of this year.
On the other hand, the minister explained that to ensure traceability, the customs export declaration is being supplemented with information on the origin concession and the mineral processing plant.
"Because what has been identified is a significant difference between the estimated production of formal mining and the volume that Peru is exporting —nearly 46 tons," Perez Reyes said on Wednesday.
"So, the value of this is approximately US$3.5 billion, and what we want is to ensure traceability so that the product being exported has full traceability," he added.
"In addition to improving formalization, so that what we are not currently detecting —which is estimated to represent a significant component, roughly around US$4.5 billion— also goes through formal channels and is exported formally," Perez Reyes indicated.
"Therefore, this is consistent with the figures we have at Sunat, which indicate that illegal mining accounts for around 2.7 percentage points of GDP," he specified.
Lastly, the minister said that Sunat conducts guidance and support campaigns to help informal miners register not only in the mining formalization process, but also in the tax and customs formalization process.