Living in Peru : your everyday companion

(LIP-wb) -- Peruvian chicken is a rather insignificant product representing only a small fraction of Peru's general exports. But since Peruvian chicken products entered the Japanese market in November 2005, export orders have skyrocketed.

Peru's Exporters Association (ADEX) informed that in 2006, total shipments increased to more than US$ 284k, which is 1785 % more than in 2005 when only US$ 15k were shipped abroad.

The Japanese market opened to the favorite bird on Peruvian dinner tables as soon as the Direction for Commercial Promotion of the Peruvian Foreign Ministry, with support of a group of private companies, finalized proceedings that allowed raising sanitary restrictions which previously prevented exports to that country. The process lasted more than four years.

(Text and Photos by Joe Lara)


As I passed by beaches and through provincial towns scattered along the Peruvian coastline on my way to Ica, I noticed a large spectrum of contrasts.

Only an hour’s drive from Lima, billboards advertising anything from beer to car insurance target Lima’s affluent minority class who bask on the sun-kissed shores of Asia Beach, a previously barren desert coastal strip erected into a bustling summer mini-metropolis by young Limeans searching for a weekend getaway.

In the span of just a few years, everything from bars and American fast food restaurants, to major department stores and supermarkets now litter the once empty ocean view from the Pan-American Highway.

While Lima’s well-to-do frolic at Asia Beach, the landscape changes dramatically just a few miles to the south of the popular summertime getaway on the Southern Pan-American Highway.

The numerous billboards are replaced by humble sidewalk eateries and markets. Poverty and informal food vendors, selling everything from corn on the cob to ‘chifles’ (salted fried plantain banana chips), and moto-taxis, a low-cost taxi derived from a motorcycle and chariot-like contraption, dominate the small town landscapes of places like Cañete and Chincha.

The Peruvian tangerine, acid yet sweeter than the orange, is very appreciated in Europe and thus, it becomes an exportable product with great potential.

First: Of all the major tangerine buyers in the world (France, Germany and the UK), we only sell it to the UK. Besides exporting our tangerines to the Netherlands, Canada and Ireland, we could sell it also to the other two major buyers. Moreover, just recently our credentials have been accepted in the U.S.

Second: Despite the fact that the tangerine is the most exported citrus product from Peru - it concentrates 98% of all sales of oranges, tangelos, lemons and tangerines - this sale to overseas market only absorbs about 9% of our national production total. The world’s tangerine production surpasses the 20% of total citrus production and 30% of its exports.

By Rafael Huamán, Senior Manager of the Division of Business Risk Advisory Services, Ernest & Young

Business fraud is not just a topic related to Peru, it's global. Fraud, that ghost capable of destroying reputations of the most prestigious companies, is usually latent almost everywhere. Its presence can send away clients, suppliers, investors and talents, causing damage to the reputation that is more expensive than the very amounts defrauded. The best solution is to prevent.

In this sense, here is a series of myths that is worth the trouble of clarifying. Let’s have a look at the main ones that a study by Ernest & Young has brought to light.

By Patricia Gamboa Vilela, professor of Industrial Property Law at the PUCP and analyst in the Distinctive Signs Office of Indecopi

There is no successful product that doesn't distinguish itself from the competition by its own individual brand name. Thus products derived from biodiversity, in order to be recognized and distinguished from others, can also be subject to the application of intellectual property rights which guarantee greater benefits for producers.

For the past several years, we have witnessed an increasing interest in natural products and their derivatives. Among them are those with special characteristics, such as place of production and the traditional manner in which they are cultivated, extracted or processed, that ultimately make them unique within their category. At the same time, these products identify the towns and cities from where they come and, in many cases acquire a prestige that transcends to their place of origin.

(LIP-wb) -- Tatsuya Shimizu at IDE JETRO, the Institute of Developing Economies of the External Trade Organisation in Japan (- link-) , created this very informative discussion paper on increasing Peruvian asparagus exports.

According to his report, Peru is the one of the most important exporters of asparagus in the world. Its export volume of fresh asparagus is ranked number one, and its export volume of preserved asparagus number two, globally.

By Javier Verástegui Lazo, Chief of the Office of Science and Technology Policies -- Concytec

The impact of biotechnological development on the increase of human well-being entails a series of improvements in the various productive processes that involve organic inputs. This article comments on these phenomena.

From the very beginning, mankind has used traditional biotechnology to improve his crops and livestock, as well as to make foods and fermented drinks (bread, yogurt, cheese, beer, wine, chicha). Modern biotechnology appeared recently at the end of the past century with human health applications. There are presently hundreds of therapeutic proteins, human vaccines, medications and diagnostic kits, as well as advanced research in the development of genetic therapies that inhibit the predisposition to diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer and others.