"In Chile there is more talk of capacity expansions," said the Minister of Energy and Mines, Rómulo Mucho.

The head of the Ministry of Energy and Mines (Minem), Rómulo Mucho, assured today Wednesday that Peru has the capacity to surpass Chile in copper production, which would place it in first place worldwide.

To achieve this goal, Mucho specified that an investment of US$ 40,000 million is required in order to get closer to the current values of Chilean production.

"We need US$ 40,000 million to invest and with that we are stepping on Chile's heels, we can even pass it because our projects are green field , new projects. In Chile there is more talk of capacity expansions," said the minister in dialogue with Regional Communication Network (RCR).

According to data from the Statista portal, Chile's copper production is around 5,000 million metric tons. Congo follows with close to 2.5 billion and then Peru with similar values.

Much assured that Peru can regain second place in production given that it has greater copper reserves than the Congueños. According to the head of Minem, these amount to 110 million tons, below the almost 200 in Chile.

Likewise, he mentioned that tax revenue from exports of the red metal will increase the development of the country due to the various benefits it brings to the Peruvian economy.

"Copper revenues could finance the development of Peru because 72% of the entire portfolio of mining projects are copper," he said.

The Minister of Energy and Mines specified that, worldwide, there are 2.5 billion tons of copper to be exploited and 3.5 billion to be discovered.

"With an exploration campaign we can achieve greater resources and convert them into reserves. Copper today is the guide of tax revenue in Peru, the guide of exports that at this time represents more than 35% of all exports, it is the first export product. It is the one that confronts the dollar, copper rises, the dollar falls," he pointed out.