Peru ECONOMIC POLICIES AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES
Figure 9 Primary Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Minerals Activity,
1990
Source: Based on information from Orlando D. Martino, Mineral
Industries of Latin America, Washington, September 1988, 110;
and Aníbal Cueva García, ed., Gran atlas geográfico del Perú y
el mundo, Lima, 1990, 651, 692.
Morning rush hour on Avenida de los Heroes in Lima's
low-income, southern district of San Juan de Miraflores
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank
Figure 10 Transportation System, 1991
Unavailable
Trucks passing a construction area on the northern
coast-to-jungle Olmos-Corral Quemado road
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank
Market day near Puno
Courtesy World Bank (Ramon Cerra)
Peru's long reliance on a relatively open economy
allowed the
country to reach a level of income per capita above the
average
for Latin America at the start of the 1960s but with
exceptionally high degrees of poverty and inequality. Its
open
economy also left the country behind the leading countries
of the
region in terms of development of entrepreneurship and
technology, as well as capacity of the public sector for
effective policy implementation. Popular dissatisfaction
and
pressures for change had objective reasons behind them.
The military government of General Velasco changed the
scene
completely with its radical reforms of 1968-72. Peru has
never
been the same since. But the changes did not lead to any
sustainable new economic strategy: the old balance was
destroyed,
but no viable new one was created to replace it. All the
governments since Velasco have been trying to find new
solutions
by reversing their predecessors' policies, so far without
notable
success.
Data as of September 1992
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