Special Report: Global Financial Crisis

    LIMA, March 12 (Xinhua) -- A World Bank official said on Thursday that Peru will be the only country in the region that will not have an economic recession.

    After embracing a growth of 9.84 percent in 2008, Peru's economy is expected to be the best performance in Latin America, said Marcelo Giugale, director of the World Bank for the Poverty Reduction and Economic Administration in Latin America and the Caribbean.

    Giugale told local daily "El Mercurio" that in other countries like Brazil and Chile, the growth rates probably will be near to zero.

    Despite the fact that Peru recently corrected its growth projections for 2009 by reducing the figure from 9 to 5 percent, the number is still positive.

    According to the International monetary Found (IMF), the world economy will drop 0.5 percent this year.

    In the last nine years, Peru's economy grows at an average rate of over 5 percent. It was 7.6 percent and 8.9 percent in 2006 and 2007 respectively.

    According to Peruvian President Alan Garcia, Peru has a reserve of more than 30 billion U.S. dollars.

    On December 2008, Peru's savings allowed the government to announce a plan of stimulus for three billion dollars to fight the adversity of the world financial crisis.