The millionaire losses left to Peru by Pedro Castillo's curfew

A surprise and unforeseen announcement by Pedro Castillo declaring that Lima and Callao comply with a mandatory immobilization until 23:59 on April 5 significantly damages the Peruvian economy, causing losses of up to 1 billion soles a day (US $220 million) in the Peruvian capital alone.

Infobae Peru spoke with Jorge Carrillo, finance expert and professor at the Pacífico Business School, who explained that this stoppage generates huge losses not only in Lima, but also in the country. “A year Peru produces 550 billion soles and in just one day around 1 billion that it would lose because it has stopped producing and if it does it stops hiring.”

“This measure is opposed and will not encourage confidence or promote private investment, because the government shuts down all economic activity overnight,” he said.

For Carrillo, what Pedro Castillo is doing is a “choking slap, but I hope it's not a permanent issue or a habit, that would be very dangerous.”

Meanwhile, Carlos Parodi stressed that this government measure is a 'meaningless' that harms the most vulnerable and sensitive businesses such as restaurants, bakeries and businesses that buy daily supplies and lose everything they have invested.

Parodi explained that one of the main problems facing the Executive is communication and “this causes a huge loss to SMEs and small companies where the vast majority of jobs are in Peru”. However, he believes that it is the measure that the government will put in place will need it to be credible. “For the country to grow again it needs to believe and there is no credibility. People don't believe”

“It's not just the 900 million suns. If this spreads nationwide, I don't know what magnitude it can take. There are people who have lost for 5 days with all the transport stoppage and they are people who live from day to day and are being stopped with unemployment and curfew, so how do they live”, he said.

For his part, the former Minister of Economy, Luis Miguel Castilla, said that this measure of paralyzing all of Lima and Callao is “a total nonsense”. “The government has not calculated that it was going to be a boomerang. It is concentrating a greater rejection of the measures it is carrying out, not because they are not effective, but because of the economic cost they can represent.”

“What it has achieved is to unite all the unions, from small business to large industry, in rejection of its measures,” he said.

“With this measure, what he is doing is limiting the ability of many Peruvians to earn their daily bread, that does not help to face the economic problem. Many live from informal work to carry bread day by day and sustain themselves, that is why I think this type of measure is absurd because the containment of protests must be by ensuring that the rule of law is prevailed, blockades avoided and that authority is exercised correctly,” he said.

Castilla also stressed that if the government lifts the immobilization in Lima, it will face the rejection of the population, but what is worse, this arbitrary measure is already affecting the image of the country. “A badly managed country that has made entities like Moody's indicate not only that the president is not going to to finish his term , but Peru will be better off without him, which seems to me to be a rather savvy statement”

“That is what those who buy bonds from us and the international market see and that takes its toll. It's a lot of mistakes that we're going to pay dearly,” he stressed

LOSSES IN GAMARRA

The Gamarra Peru Business Association issued a statement in which they raised their voice of protest at the extreme measures of the President of the Republic and indicated that this stoppage of activities causes losses of at least 20 million soles, harming 32,000 microentrepreneurs and more than 100,000 workers.

“The disproportionate measure lacking legitimacy occurs in the midst of the autumn-winter campaign, which is one of the main seasons of the year, due to the number of visitors to the stores, sales and production of the workshops, which in just one day exceed 20 million soles in losses,” says the association

They add that “in the midst of the country's greatest economic crisis in more than 100 years, and with the urgent need for economic revival - in which the government has left microentrepreneurs alone without any reviving measures - preventing us from working greatly affects the economy and the livelihoods of our families.”

SUPERMARKETS AND SHOPPING CENTERS

The Lima Chamber of Commerce stressed today that this day of compulsory stoppage also represents S/50 million losses for supermarkets and shopping centers, US$13 million in the Round Table and in wholesale markets 60% of food can be lost today due to the lack of consumer purchases.

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