LIMA (Reuters) – President Ollanta Humala vowed yesterday to ramp up social spending for the poor as he tries to spread the benefits of an economic boom to all Peruvians and defuse conflicts over mining that have marred his term.
Humala, in an annual address to Congress just days after anti-mining protests prompted him to shuffle his cabinet for the second time in his year-old government, said he would extend the rollout of social programmes in a bid to cut the nation’s poverty rate to 15 per cent by the end of his term in 2016.
The poverty rate has been cut in half to 27 per cent in the past decade but still tops 60 per cent in remote provinces.
Many rural towns have not seen the fruits of the country’s long expansion, which was initially led by surging metals exports from one of the world’s biggest mineral producers but is now being led by surging public investment and sizzling domestic demand.
“We have made significant advances in twinning growth to inclusion, but we must admit we haven’t attained all we proposed. All beginnings are tough,” he said..
