Peru is now the fourth largest recipient of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in Latin America and the Carribean, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
Alicia Barcena, Eclac's executive secretary, said the Andean Nation received a total of US$ 10.172 billion in FDI inflows, a 17% drop from 2012 but still its second highest annual inflows ever.
"In recent years Peru has registered record FDI inflows, mostly driven by large reinvested earnings from mining companies", Barcena said on Thursday.
FDI inflows in Peru has surged by 47% from US$6,92 billion in 2008 to US$ 10,17 billion in 2013, being the fourth country with the highest growth rate of FDI in the region, Barcena reported.
Likewise, she pointed that the large presence of Chinese companies in the mining industry is set to increase as Minmetals acquired the Las Bambas mine from Swiss Glencore Xstrata for US$ 5.85 billion in early 2014.
"Altough there is no official data on FDI by industry, transnational corporations have a strong presence in many sectors in Peru beyond mining", ECLAc's official said.
Barcena went on to note that FDI in services such as finance, retail and telecoms (all dominated by transnational corporations) is likely to have remained high, given that domestic demand expanded 6.1% in 2013.
"For example, in the telecommunication sector, Entel of Chile acquired the third largest network, Nextel, for US$ 400 million", she said.
(END) JJN/AQR/DLG/LOG
Published: 5/30/2014