Copper and Gold Power Peru
The Land That's Dug Stays Poor

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With Latin America's overall GDP growth expected to stall at 2.1 to 2.2 percent, Peru is quietly pulling ahead. Real GDP grew 3.68 percent year-on-year in February 2026, beating the 3.1 percent consensus compiled by Reuters. The World Bank projects 3.1 percent for the full year, the IMF 2.8 percent. Either figure runs nearly a point above the regional average. No fanfare, just steady results.

What Drives the Growth

The engines are retail and services alongside private investment. Private investment alone rose 10 percent in 2025, the fastest pace since 2013 if you set aside the post-pandemic rebound. Two forces sit behind it: rising international prices for copper and gold, and infrastructure projects that kept moving. Peru ranks second in the world for copper and silver, seventh for gold. When metals climb, the gain flows almost directly into the economy.

Inside the Boom

In its Article IV concluding statement on March 25, the IMF praised the performance and added a warning. High metal prices are drawing not only legal operators but illegal ones. Illegal mining is expanding fast for copper as well as gold, and the IMF noted that regulatory ambiguity has been left unaddressed, letting illegal operators scale up with impunity.

Illegal mining is not only a question of law and order. The first land to be carved up usually belongs to Indigenous communities in the Andes and the Amazon. Combine that with mercury poisoning the rivers, and farming and fishing take the hit. Beyond the 3.68 percent headline, a quieter cost keeps piling up.

Where the Numbers Don't Reach

Peru's growth tends to concentrate in Lima and its surroundings. In the Andean highlands and the Amazon, poverty rates remain high and the good times arrive late, if at all. The IMF flagged regional inequality as one of the country's challenges. The places where metal is dug out and the places that reap the reward sit far apart, a contradiction familiar to any resource economy.

The copper comes out of the ground. The people living on that ground are not the first to benefit.

※ This article is the author’s commentary based on public information. Please confirm the latest figures, dates and procedures with governments and primary sources. Quotations are kept minimal and sources are cited.