Southern Copper Peru – listed on the NYSE, under the ticker PCU (google finance info)
Southern Copper Peru has recently has seen its shares fall across all exchanges in which this Mexican Conglomerate trades– There are many reasons and factors at play, however at the moment a mix of both the fact copper has recently declined in international markets, but also because, a important area of Peru, where Southern Copper operates is experiencing union strikes and are protesters who have blocked Peru’s main roads the area.
Argentina witnessed la Presidente– la Senora Kichner deliver a speech this evening about her own countries protesters blocked roads. I may not love their populist rhetoric or economic policy, but Mrs. Kirchner said something that makes sense… (translated from her speech shown on CNN espanol), “a select group of society can not paralyze the road and the country as a whole, they have no right to disrupt all the people’s in their own self-pursuit.”
I admit I may be butchering the speech in the moment but, the fact remains… In Latin America, roads are blocked and then the economy stops. Without infrastructure, or the preventing of people from using the little infrastructure that does exist, Latin America remains in a “catch 22.” In situations where it socially may make sense to implement reforms, governments are forced to make concessions due to necessity.
Photos below are pictures of PCU’s operations in Peru and links to available financial info– via Google.com/finance and yahoo finance –> Southern Copper Peru (PCU)
I recall being in Tarapoto, Peru, in the Peruvian province of San Martin in 2002. Rice workers had paralyzed the region because US subsidies had made their rice more expensive than the also available imported rice from the US. The protesters took over the town square over and as temporary tourist I had to rush through the back roads in the amazon to the Airport, and hide out in a back office until a flight could take myself and my family of 12 back to Lima.
Click here to view a article in English I was able to find about the incident.
It is ironic food prices are now so high, Tarapoto’s Rice industry is now growing rice and actually making a profit, although US subsidies still aren’t help the overall market. The fact and main point I am attempting to get across is that all it took for protesters to paralyze the region was to blockade one highway–leaving the city isolated. and disrupting economic activity in the rest of the region due to the fact major roads pass through Tarapoto, the biggest city in the region.
I hope in a general sense things improve– both on the part of the protesters in Peru, who do deserve new benefits as a result of high commodity prices, but also for Peru as a whole which in reality suffers a great deal, proportionately speaking when events such as this occur.
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