"Without a green chapter in the FTA, Chinese mining companies are the winners in Peru" - 25 September 2020

Social and environmental organizations demand that the FTA between Peru and China be updated to include environmental measures... Ten years after the entry into force of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Peru and China, authorities and officials from both countries are in a slow process of renegotiation in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, to date none of the talks or agreements include measures on environmental matters...In October 2019, the fourth round of negotiations for the optimization of the FTA between Peru and China ended. Beijing has become Peru's main trading partner in seven of the nine years since the FTA entered into force in 2010. And although some sectors such as textiles have been affected, as reported by the Chinese Dialogue, trade between the two countries grew at an average annual rate of 9%...The activity of mining companies, such as MMG Limited and Chinalco, concentrates most of Peru's exports to China, according to figures from the National Superintendence of Customs and Tax Administration (Sunat) as of December 2019. Given the disproportionate weight of the sector in the trade relationship between the two countries, it would also be the one that would benefit most from the non-inclusion of environmental measures in the renegotiation of the FTA. [Refers to Sinohydro, CITIC, Guoxin International Investment, Cosco Shipping Corporation and China National Petroleum Corporation]