Despite the downturn facing the region, Peru will keep posting high growth rates in the next years underpinned by mining, which help it finance social programs and keep its middle class, says Ana Maria Corbacho, Mission Chief for Peru at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
What are your growth expectations for Peru?
Economic rebound is already underway in Peru, and the reactivated mining production has contributed to this.
Will this expansion help Peru continue to fund social programs?
Sustained growth is important to keep developing a social inclusion agenda. Even though Peru is going to post high growth rates in the next years, such rates are not promising for external structural factors in the medium and long term. It this context, it is essential to restore the fiscal space, given that metal prices will be lower, and this requires to broaden the tax base and expand financing options.
What will be middle class’ behavior in the following years?
Before discussing the future of middle class, I want to acknowledge the huge progress made so far. Peru has been one of the countries that have recorded significant progress in lifting families out of poverty.
What can we do to continue doing so?
Middle class consolidation will be achieved through macroeconomic stability, sustained growth and social programs that provide benefits and improve the future of families through human capital-oriented policies, focusing on academic training and increasing formal employment.
Has Peru initiated the agenda?
Yes, it has, and what matters now is to continue these efforts, because this type of agenda can not be developed but in the long term. Foundations have been laid focusing on social programs from the earliest stages of life into old age.
Interviewed by El Peruano official newspaper in the framework of the Meetings of the Boards of Governors of the WBG and the IMF.