on Wednesday stressed that international trade of Peruvian goods grew by 14.9% in the first quarter of 2021 —a rate higher than that achieved by trade in Latin America, which achieved an expansion of 9.5%.
This outstanding 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, Peru's trade balance surplus stands at US$630 million.
The government official 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.
"The foreign trade of Latin American goods has been partially recovering from the fall suffered in 2020, as a result of the pandemic," Minister Cornejo expressed.
"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," she added.
As is known, 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 and accumulated 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," he indicated.
Concerning imports, between January and March, these increased 17.5% due to higher purchases of capital goods (+24%), intermediate goods/raw materials (+16%), and consumer goods (+12%).
"In Peru, imports grew due to the greater purchase of inputs and capital goods. For instance, the greater import of capital goods was due to the greater purchase of information technology (+72%)," the deputy minister indicated.
"Likewise, entry of non-durable consumer goods increased (+5.5%) due to higher purchases of face masks (+2,058%), food (+13%), and pharmaceuticals (+12%), among others," he added.