Peru :: essays research papers

PeruPerus gross domestic product in the tardy mid-eighties was $19.6 billion, or close $920 per capita. Although the economy remains primarily agricultural, the minelaying and sportfishing industries demand become increasingly important. Peru reliesprimarily on the exportation of raw materialschiefly minerals, farm products, andfish mealto earn overseas exchange for importing machinery and manufacturedgoods. During the late 1980s, guerrilla violence, rampant inflation, chronicbudget deficits, and drought combined to drive the country to the brink of monetary insolvency. However, in 1990 the government imposed an austerity programthat removed expenditure controls and ended subsidies on many basic items and allowedthe inti, the national currency, to float against the get unneurotic States dollar.About 35 percent of Perus working population is engaged in farming.Most of the coastal atomic number 18a is devoted to the raising of export crops on the montaa and the sierra are mai nly grown crops for local consumption. many farms inPeru are very small and are used to green groceries subsistence crops the country alsohas large cooperative farms. The chief agricultural products, together with theapproximate annual yield (in system of measurement piles) in the late 1980s, were sugar cane (6.2million), potatoes (2 million), rice (1.1 million), corn (880,000), seed cotton(280,000), coffee (103,000), and wheat (134,000). Peru is the worlds leadersgrower of coca, from which the drug cocaine is refined.The livestock population included about 3.9 million cattle, 13.3 millionsheep, 1.7 million goats, 2.4 million hogs, 875,000 horses and mules, and 52million poultry. Llamas, sheep, and vicuas provide wool, hides, and skins.The forests covering 54 percent of Perus land area have not beensignificantly exploited. Forest products include balsa lumber and scrub beefwood gum,rubber, and a variety of medicinal plants. Notable among the latter is thecinchona plant, from w hich quinine is derived. The annual roundwood harvest inthe late 1980s was 7.7 million cu m.The fishing industry is extremely important to the countrys economy andaccounts for a significant distribute of Perus exports. It underwent a remarkableexpansion after World War II (1939-1945) the catch in the late 1980s was about5.6 million metric tons annually. More than three-fifths of the catch isanchovies, used for making fish meal, a product in which Peru leads the world.The extractive industries figure significantly in the Peruvian economy.Peru ranks as one of the worlds leading producers of copper, silver, lead, andzinc petroleum, natural gas, iron ore, molybdenum, tungsten, and gold areextracted in significant quantities. Annual production in the late 1980sincluded 3.3 million metric tons of iron ore 406,400 metric tons of copper