The Japan government won an international tender to technically assist Peru in the execution of an irrigation project of at least US $ 531 million, In an effort to boost the country’s agro -exports, the Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation, Ángel Manero, said Thursday.
Japan’s technical assistance will last five years and the works will begin to be executed no later than 2028Manero said after the tender in which the governments of Canada, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands also participated.
Under this modality, Japan will design and supervise the works of the first stage of the “Majes Siguas” irrigation project, which will expand up to about 24,000 hectares the agricultural border in the southern region of Arequipa, said the minister.
The Majes Siguas project has three stages of development, with the aim of winning up to 80,000 hectares of cultivation in Arequipa, one of the country’s agro -export poles.
This type of technical advice under the “Government to Government” scheme is a modality that Peru has used for a few years to avoid possible acts of corruption.
Peruvian agricultural exports that include blueberries, grapes and avocados have grown strongly in the last decade. Last year they increased 22%, to US $ 12.8 billion, mainly to the United States and Europe.
With the implementation in Peru of a deep -waters megapuerto at the end of the yearbuilt by the Chinese firm Cosco Shipping Ports, the Andean country hopes to raise its sales of agricultural products to the large market of the Asia.
Peru launched in March a portfolio of irrigation projects worth US $ 24,000 million in search of expanding the agricultural border in more than one million hectares.
The Peruvian government hopes that in 2050 agricultural sales will exceed mining, considered the country’s economic engine. Peru is the third largest copper producer.
