El Opinador Compulsivo

Johan Norberg sobre Perú. Qué envidia que me da:

Peru is...more. I don’t know if it’s the weather or something they do, but Peruvian food taste much more (try the fish, especially the ceviche) and the authors write unputdownable books (try Mario Vargas Llosa). The economy also produces stronger results than the region as a whole. After several years of liberal reforms Peru has almost attained Chinese levels of growth, and chronic hunger has been reduced from 28 to 15% since 1990.

Some of the political characters are also larger than life, if they were fictional they wouldn’t be credible. President Alan Garcia governed as a bizarre leftist populist in the 1980s and oversaw a rise in political violence, a drop in GDP of 20% and an inflation rate of more than 7,000%. He is now back, and having learned from his mistakes he wants to change his ways. Now he acts as a counterweight to the Chavistas in the region and implements a market- and trade friendly agenda.

It seems like the attempts to diversify production and trade helps the Peruvian economy to weather the storm better. The latest World Bank prognosis points to a reduction in Latin America’s growth rate to 2.1% next year, Argentina will grow 1.5%, and Venezuela no more than 1%. At the same time Peru is set to grow by 5.2%.