Peru Economy to Grow 7 Percent in 2005

Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo raised the forecast for economic growth in 2005 to 7 percent, a percentage point higher than the previous estimate, as exports of copper, gold and fishmeal surge.

The pace of expansion will make Peru the world´s sixth- fastest growing emerging-market economy, Toledo told Lima-based radio station Radioprogramas last week.

“We´re going to leave the next government with a solid economy growing 5.5 percent a year on average,” said President Toledo, whose term ends in July 2006. “The next president will harvest what I´ve sown: access to new markets.”

Mr. Toledo has pursued trade agreements with the U.S., the European Union, Singapore and Chile to expand Peru´s export markets in his four-and-a-half years in office.

This year, exports led by copper, gold and fishmeal jumped by one-third to $12 billion through the third quarter, helping South America´s seventh-largest economy expand at 5.9 percent through the same period. Exports to Asia, Peru´s second-biggest trading partner, rose by a third to $2.4 billion.

Mr. Toledo, who met with U.S. President George W. Bush twice this month, said they both ordered their negotiators to be more flexible in a bid to wrap up a U.S.-Andean free trade agreement in Washington D.C. this week after 18 months of talks.