Living in Peru : your everyday companion

Peru’s foreign agricultural trade in the first seven months of this year has increased 41 percent, amounting to 3.21 billion dollars, with respect to the same period last year, the Peruvian ministry of Agriculture (Minag) reported today.

Minag attributed this rise to good performance of exports and greater dynamism of the agricultural imports.

With respect to the agriculture trade balance for this 7-month period, it shows a higher deficit with a negative result of 468 million dollars compared to the same period in 2007, which registered a negative result of 177 million dollars.

According to Minag’s Unit of Agro-Business and Market Access, this negative balance is due to the greater import of goods for the agro-industry sector.

It is worth noting that Peruvian agro-exports posted records in the January-July period of 2008 amounting to 1.37 billion dollars, 30.1 percent more than the amount registered in the same term last year when these exports totaled 1.05 billion dollars.

The agriculture imports reached a value of 1.83 billion dollars in the January-July period of this year, with a growth rate of 50 percent with respect to same period last year, figures that are even higher than the increase of exports.

The increase of agriculture imports reflects the international prices rise of commodities such as the wheat, yellow corn, and soy, said Minag.

News source: ANDINA