THE 9 MOST IMPORTANT ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES IN PERU - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The economic activities of Peru are all the processes marked by the economy through which the Republic of Peru obtains most of the income that allows its citizens to survive.

Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country located in western South America, being completely washed by the coasts of the Pacific Ocean. In addition, it limits to the north with Colombia and Ecuador, to the east with Brazil and to the south with Chile and Bolivia.

Palace of Justice of Lima

Peru is a unitary, decentralized and presidential republic, made up of twenty-four departments and the Constitutional Province of El Callao.

Its geography is extremely varied, being a reservoir of biodiversity in the entire part of the Amazon jungle and also in the Andes Mountains, which passes and divides its territory in two.

The desert is also present in its capital, Lima, and continues to the south. Peru is a developing country, whose main sources of economic income are strongly tied to the peculiarities of its geography.

After experiencing one of the strongest economic crises in Latin America in the last two decades of the 20th century, the Peruvian economy is experiencing rapid and determined growth.

Its Human Development Index has already reached a high level, as well as its low inflation rates show that the stability of the Peruvian economy is not in dispute and is attractive to thousands of foreign investors.

As Peru is a country that produces mostly raw materials, it has developed a series of Free Trade Agreements with different countries.

These include Canada, Chile, China, South Korea, Costa Rica, the United States, Japan, Mexico, Panama, Singapore, Thailand and Venezuela, as well as the European Free Trade Association, the Andean Community and the European Union.

Main activities of the Peruvian economy

farming

Throughout its history, since the pre-Columbian times of the Inca Empire, agriculture has been the engine of the Peruvian economy.

For more than a millennium, products such as potatoes and corn have been collected and consumed in the area.

Also rice, sweet potato, quinoa, maca, cocoa and coffee are very harvested, in addition to products that only occur in cold parts such as wheat, apple and pear.

The place where agriculture is most developed and technified is in the coastal areas, because the terrain is flatter and suitable for food harvesting, while in the Amazon and the Andean region agriculture is more extensive.

Mining

Peru is the country with the most developed mining industry in Latin America. Multiple foreign companies operate in this country, which has become the largest producer of gold in the region, in addition to zinc, lead and tin or elements such as silver and copper.

Mining takes place especially in the southern part of the country, although the largest gold mine in the region is in the north.

It is the Yanacocha Mine, located in the vicinity of the city of Cajamarca in the Andean mountain range, at more than 3,500 meters above sea level.

The extensive Peruvian coastline has allowed the development of a medium-level fishing industry.

Marine biodiversity has been widely recognized and is also reflected in fishing, as fish such as anchovy, tuna, snook, silverside, corvina, grouper, and cabrilla are commercialized, among others.

This economic activity can be carried out in two main ways. The first one is of a minor type, and can be understood as artisanal fishing.

The other is industrial fishing, which is carried out with large boats and modern mechanisms for catching fish, as well as machinery for further processing.

Cattle raising

In Peru there are favorable conditions for a livestock environment, which consists of raising animals to be used later as food.

To understand this economic activity, it is necessary to know that the region where livestock farming has developed the most is in the Andes, because here are the large pastures on which these animals can be fed.

However, the Amazon region is the most favorable for this activity, because it has non-floodable soils.

Although Peru is a country that mainly produces raw materials, the industrial part has developed widely, especially in the last decades.

This country is already being able to process a large part of the raw material it produces, which implies an advance in its financial autonomy.

The food processing industry and the steel industry, located in the regions of Arequipa and Ica, are of special importance in national economic development.

The paper industry has also had a strong growth, due to the large amount of cane used for this purpose, and the fur industry, which processes llama and alpaca skin. Finally, the naval industry, located in Callao, also stands out.

It is one of the main economic activities in Peru, being surpassed by mining. The pre-Columbian history of Peru left great architectural constructions that are annually visited by millions of tourists.

Sites such as Machu Picchu in the Sacred Valley of the Incas or the pre-Columbian city of Chan Chan are world renowned for their unique characteristics and their conservation.

Also, the city of Lima has great tourist attraction, without neglecting Amazonian areas such as the city of Iquitos.

For any country to be able to articulate its different realities, it is necessary to create a transportation system that covers a large part of its territory.

Currently, Peru has a road network of 137 thousand kilometers of highways. This part has grown vertiginously in recent years, managing to connect all Peruvian departments, even the remote Amazon with its capital Iquitos, although most of the traffic to this city is carried out by river or air.

There are very few railways in the country and they are mainly destined for cargo. However, the trend is on the rise because in 2009 the first line of the Lima Metro was inaugurated.

An already consolidated sector is the air, with 11 airports with international category. Finally, the long coastline along the Pacific Ocean, Lake Titicaca and rivers as large as the Amazon make Peru a country with a developed water transport.

Petroleum

Peru has several oil fields. Among these, the one located in the northwestern area of ​​the Peruvian coast, in the department of Piura, stands out.

Within the framework of actions for the efficient exploitation of this resource, Peru has the North Peruvian pipeline, whose main function is to allow the transfer of oil obtained in the jungle to the coast.

Natural gas fields are also important for this South American country. At the end of the 20th century, a large natural gas field was discovered in Cuzco, which has been exploited.

International Trade

The products that Peru exports the most are minerals, food, agricultural products and precious metals.

In relation to imports, chemical products, machinery and transport equipment stand out.

The United States and China are the main destinations for exports and also the countries from which the most is imported into Peru.

The 3 sectors of the Peruvian economy

The primary sector

The primary sector includes activities related to the exploitation and extraction of natural resources. Like almost all of Latin America, Peru makes a good part of its economic effort in this sector.

Agriculture, livestock, forestry, fishing, mining and hydrocarbons are among the mainstays of its economy.

Revenues from mining and hydrocarbons have been above 14% of GDP in recent years, leading this sector.

Agriculture, livestock and fishing combined contribute approximately to a GDP that is currently close to 8%, although at the beginning of the millennium this contribution reached 12%.

The Peruvian economy has been experiencing a decline in the production of its primary sector. For example, its agriculture has been declining since the mid-90s, when it reached a growth of 13% that has been plummeting until landing at 1.8% in 2016.

This is also how fishing has behaved, which since 1960 has not shown sustained growth, registering a decrease of more than 10% for 2016 and going through critical periods such as 2012, when its production fell to more than 36%.

Within the primary sector, the extraction of Peruvian oil and minerals is one of the activities that has managed to maintain its growth rates positive during the last 25 years.

In spite of everything, it should be noted that in 2016 this important sector of the Peruvian economy registered a promising 16%, which stands out when compared to the 5% growth averaged in previous years.

The secondary sector

The secondary sector of an economy is made up of industrial and manufacturing activities that add value to the raw materials obtained by the primary sector.

The primary economic struggle in the world concert of nations is to strengthen its secondary sector, in order to favor the balance of trade with its neighbors.

In Peru, this task was consciously assumed since 1950, date from which records and indicators are kept for the analysis and adoption of public policies.

However, it was not until 1959 when the Industrial Protection Law was enacted, with the intention of giving an important boost to this sector.

Something has been achieved since then but still without conclusive results, because many of its industries have high cost structures and some depend on raw materials that must be imported.

In any case, the secondary sector of Peru has benefited from these public policies that the State has promoted, currently representing around 35% of the Peruvian GDP.

Among the activities in this sector, manufacturing and construction stand out.

In Peru, these two economic actors have grappled with global market conditions, having variable behaviors over time but with overall favorable results taking into account the average growth of the last two decades.

Manufacturing surpassed a very erratic decade of the 1980s, which left an average negative growth of 1.3%.

After this, it seems that he achieved the formula to leave behind the abrupt setbacks, achieving growth in 70% of the subsequent periods.

Although it is true that from 2014 to 2016 the manufacturing sector decreased, it was in magnitudes that do not reach 2%. Nothing comparable with falls of 15% and up to 18% that occurred between the 80s and 90s.

For its part, construction activity has a behavior similar to that of manufacturing, decreasing only in four periods since the opening of the millennium.

The tertiary sector

The tertiary sector brings together the different economic actors whose activity is limited to communications, transport, health, tourism, legal, administrative, financial services, among others.

Peru has a tertiary sector that currently accounts for about 32% of its total GDP. Transport, telecommunications, tourism and electricity generation stand out in this segment.

Public services show an impressive growth record since 1950, showing a decrease in only seven periods in 66 years of economic history.

The rest of the services, combined or grouped, also offer a good face given that their last falls were experienced in the 80s.

This seems to indicate that Peru has a robust tertiary sector. This greatly favors, since it serves as a platform for the other two sectors in the search for greater growth.

Economic activities of the coast

Agriculture is one of the most developed activities on the Peruvian coast.

The average temperature in the region is 19 ° C and the presence of rainfall between December and April allows cotton, asparagus, mango, olives, paprika, oregano and artichoke to be harvested on its soils, among other products.

In the economy of the coastal zone, artisanal fishing also stands out both in seas and rivers. The river shrimp is one of the most fished specimens in this region.

Regarding livestock, different types of livestock are raised on the Peruvian coast: pigs, cattle and poultry. Items derived from livestock are often used for industrial purposes.

Economic activities of the sierra

In the Peruvian highlands there are extensive cattle ranching, in which large areas of land are allocated; and the intensive, in which the animals are under controlled conditions of light and temperature.

The products generated from extensive livestock are destined for local consumption. Instead, the result of intensive livestock has industrial purposes.

On the other hand, agriculture is an activity of great importance given that the sierra covers more than 30% of the surface of Peru. Vegetables, cereals, legumes and other foods are derived from this activity.

As for fishing, Lake Titicaca is where this activity is most developed. The boga and suche species are among the most caught in the area.

Economic activities of the jungle

Livestock in the Peruvian jungle is represented by a particular specimen: it is the Amazon, which is a specimen that arose from the mixture of the Brown Swiss bull with the Cebu.

The upper jungle offers better possibilities for livestock than the lower jungle, which tends to suffer from floods.

Agriculture is also relevant, since the jungle covers 60% of the Peruvian territory. Coffee, mahogany, cedar, cocoa and other trees are harvested in the Peruvian jungle.

On the other hand, fishing in the Peruvian jungle is carried out especially in the Amazon River. The most fished species are piranhas and tucunaré; there are an estimated 3,000 different types of fish.

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