Peru is not only at risk of registering a drop in private investments next year, but also to have a period of “mediocre growth”, which will not help the generation of employment, assured the manager of the Peruvian Institute of Economy (IPE), Diego Macera.
“We are not even close to the figures needed to generate employment and the main concern is that we are entering a longer period of mediocre growth (between 2% and 3% per year),” he assured this newspaper.
This period could be extended for five years, which would prevent “aspiring to an economy that converges with more advanced economies.”
The lower growth will not be attenuated by the Impulso Perú plan because there is a lack of messages that provide stability and confidence that the rules of the game will be upheld.
“The plan tries to give a dynamic to the country’s growth agenda, which seems positive to me, but I have doubts about the impact and how much the needle can move at the end of the day if it is not accompanied by messages that promote investment private,” said Macera.
FISCAL POLICY
A few days ago, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, made a call to the whole world stating that “fiscal policy should not undermine monetary policy”; otherwise, the task of the latter becomes more difficult and translates into the need to further increase rates and tighten financial conditions.
How does it apply in Peru? Diego Macera explained that the impact of higher fiscal spending – through the reactivation plan promoted by the MEF – on inflation “is small”. “Inflationary pressures are more on the supply side than on the demand side, with an increase in international prices,” he added.
“For now, there is no greater risk on that side (impact on inflation), but logically if there is a long-term spending policy, there would be a concern, although more on the fiscal side,” he explained.
Meanwhile, the former Minister of Economy and Finance Alfredo Thorne considered that fiscal and monetary policy “are going hand in hand.”
“Peru’s problem is that the fiscal deficit, at least the data for July that I have seen, is well below what it should be, it reached 1.6% of GDP. The minister wants to take it to 2.5% of GDP, which seems to me to be an exaggeration and would be to take fiscal policy in one direction and monetary policy in another”, he pointed out.
In addition, he considered that the stimulus plan will not have an impact on economic growth and that “the only thing that will be able to be implemented is current spending and not investment spending.”
IMPULSES
For ComexPerú, it is necessary to promote mining, irrigation and transportation projects to improve economic dynamism. He warned that a recession in his trading partners, such as the United States, would slow down Peruvian shipments, for which he indicated that immediate action is required to “soften the impacts of lower global demand.”
