Peru became the Andean Community (CAN) member with most exports to the world in 2016, thus beating 2015's top exporter Colombia, Andean Parliament legislator Mario Zuñiga announced on Tuesday.
A study presented by the South American bloc places the Inca nation as its largest exports contributor, accounting for 38.9% (US$34.988 billion) of total exports.
Peru is followed by Colombia (34.4%; US$30.976 billion), Ecuador (18.7%; US$16.801 billion) and Bolivia (8%; US$7.164 billion).
This way, Peru outperforms neighboring Colombia, which led the ranking at US$35.556 billion the previous year (2015).
"Our exports saw a 10% rise from one year to the next, whereas Colombia's dropped 12.9%. Ecuador's and Bolivia's also decreased by 8.5% and 19.1%, respectively," Zuñiga explained.
Peru's trade leadership was mainly driven by greater shipments of copper (38.1%), raw gold for non-monetary use (15.3%), unroasted non-decaf coffee (33%), cranberries (143.8%), raw silver (148.3%), among others.
"The fact the country leads the bloc's shipments to the world is encouraging news, but we see most products exported are commodities. I think the actual milestone will be transforming these raw materials into added-value elements," he observed.
"To this end, there must be a significant increase in the budget for science, technology and education," Peru's Andean Parliament representative concluded.
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