LIMA, Peru—Peru’s tightly-contested election Sunday pits an ex-president’s daughter against a former Wall Street economist, but whoever wins, the country’s embrace of the free market will likely remain strong.
Both Keiko Fujimori, the 41-year-old daughter of jailed former leader Alberto Fujimori, and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a 77-year-old former finance minister and World Bank economist who speaks perfect English, have vowed to retain investment-friendly policies in a country that has become a free-market stalwart in Latin America in the past 15 years.
During the past decade, Peru’s economy has posted some of the highest growth rates in the hemisphere, averaging about 6% a year with inflation at an average of just 2.9% a year, according to the World Bank. That has helped reduce poverty in the country to 22% last year from almost 56% in 2005, the bank says.
