Peru looks to China to help tackle infrastructure gap

Global Business

Peru looks to China to help tackle infrastructure gap

The APEC host nation Peru already has strong trade ties with the trade bloc’s biggest economy China. Since taking office in July, Peru’s president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski made an official visit to China, stress the importance of the partnership.

CCTV America’s Dan Collyns reports from Lima.

One of Latin America’s fastest growing economies in the last decade, Peru has made big strides forward in pulling millions out of poverty.

But what experts call the ‘infrastructure gap’ is still holding the country back.

Joining up this country of deserts, mountains and jungle is a pending task and Peru’s president think China can help.

In October, Kuczynski’s government was given special legislative powers to boost infrastructure projects worth $25 billion.

Those powers will it help it fast-track log-jammed projects such as expanding Lima’s metro and airports in the capital and tourism hub Cusco. That’s where China can help:

Peru is the region’s principle hub for Chinese mining investment which make up a third of the country’s overall portfolio.

China has invested in three multi-billion dollar copper mines in Peru, the world’s third largest supplier of the red metal.

Investing in Peru’s roads, ports and railways is also in China’s interests as it imports millions of tons of minerals to power its own construction boom.

Both countries have had what’s been called a strategic partnership since 2013.

Bilateral trade between the two countries has quadrupled in the last 15 years to more than 16 billion dollars last year.


Kevin Gallagher on the economic relations between China and Peru

For more on the relations between China and Peru, CCTV America’s Rachelle Akuffo spoke to Kevin Gallagher, author of “The China Triangle”.