Peru Assembles Growth
Mar 5, 2009
Peru’s construction industry is responding with gusto to a call from the government to keep building. The fastest-growing LatAm economy hopes to mitigate the pain of global crisis.
by Lucien Chauvin
The bulk of Peruvian president Alan García’s $3.2 billion anti-crisis package is earmarked for infrastructure and housing projects. He hopes to guarantee a continuation of the building boom that began early in the decade.The construction sector has expanded for 90 consecutive months since mid-2002 and has led GDP growth since 2006. Building expanded by 16.5% in 2007 year-on-year, nearly double the overall economic expansion of 8.9%. The Peruvian Construction Chamber (Capeco) forecasts a 16.4% rise in 2008, well above the anticipated expansion in GDP. Capeco president Lelio Balarezo believes 2009 will be just as good, even though he predicts a decline in private sector investment as a result of the crisis and the fact that a huge gap in office space was filled by the last five years of boom. “Contraction in the private sector will be compensated by the state, which has assigned significant amounts in public...
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