The economy of Peru is classified as upper middle income by the World Bank and is the 42nd largest in the world. Peru is, as of 2011, one of the world's fastest-growing economies owing to the economic boom experienced during the 2000s. The core of the current sound economic performance of the country is a combination of:

All of these factors have enabled Peru to make great strides in development, with improvement in government finances, poverty reduction and progress in social sectors.

Peru is an emerging, market-oriented economy characterized by a high level of foreign trade. The inequality of opportunities has declined: between 1995 and 2006 Peru's rating on The World Bank's Human Opportunity Index improved substantially as increased public investment in water, sanitation and electric power has sustained the downward trend in inequality of opportunities. Its economy is diversified although the commodity exports is important, the trade and industry are centralized in Lima but the agricultural exports have created development in all the regions. In 2010 Peru's per capita income (PPP) is bordering $10,000. Peru has a high Human Development Index score of 0.723. Poverty has steadily decreased in 18% since 2004, when nearly half the country's population was under the poverty line. 2010 data shows that around 27% of its total population is poor.

Peru ⁱ/pəˈruː/ (Spanish: Perú; Quechua: Perú;Aymara: Piruw), officially the Republic of Peru (Spanish: República del Perú, pronounced: [reˈpuβlika ðel peˈɾu] ( listen)), is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean.

Peruvian territory was home to ancient cultures, spanning from the Norte Chico civilization, one of the oldest in the world, to the Inca Empire, the largest state in Pre-Columbian America. The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century and established a Viceroyalty, which included most of its South American colonies. After achieving independence in 1821, Peru has undergone periods of political unrest and fiscal crisis as well as periods of stability and economic upswing.

Peru is a representative democratic republic divided into 25 regions. Its geography varies from the arid plains of the Pacific coast to the peaks of the Andes Mountains and the tropical forests of the Amazon Basin. It is a developing country with a high Human Development Index score and a poverty level around 31%. Its main economic activities include agriculture, fishing, mining, and manufacturing of products such as textiles.

Luis Miguel Castilla Rubio is a Peruvian economist and politician. He is the incumbent Minister of Economy and Finance of Peru, serving under President Ollanta Humala.

Educated in North America, and bilingual in Spanish and English, Miguel Castilla holds a B.A. with Honors in Economics and Business Administration from the McGill University in Montreal, Canada, a Master and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and has taken a course in the Global Crisis and Financial Reform Program of the Harvard University. He has held the positions of consultant to the World Bank vice president for North Africa and the Middle East, adviser to the executive chair of the Andean Development Corporation (CAF), and director of the Bank of the Nation of Peru. He has been a lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University and the University of the Pacific in Lima.

In the administration of President Alan García, Castilla has served as deputy minister of Finance under minister Mercedes Aráoz from January 2010 to July 2011. On 28 July 2011, newly-elected President Ollanta Humala appointed him as Minister of Economy and Finance. The choice of Castilla – who is characterised as an orthodox pro-market economist – was estimated as a sign for Humala's intention to pursue a reasonable and moderate economic policy and to remove the fears of a radical shift to the left.

José Carlos Mariátegui La Chira (14 June 1894– 16 April 1930) was a Peruvian journalist, political philosopher, and activist. A prolific writer before his early death at age 35, he is considered one of the most influential Latin American socialists of the 20th century. Mariátegui's most famous work, Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality (1928), is still widely read in South America. An avowed, self-taught Marxist, he insisted that a socialist revolution should evolve organically in Latin America on the basis of local conditions and practices, not the result of mechanically applying a European formula.

Mariátegui was born in Moquegua. His father, Francisco Javier Mariátegui Requejo, abandoned his family when José Carlos was young. To support his children, his mother, María Amalia La Chira Ballejos, moved first to Lima, then to Huacho, where she had more relatives who helped her make a living. José Carlos had a brother and a sister: Julio César and Guillermina. In 1902, as a young schoolboy, he badly injured his left leg, and was moved to a hospital in Lima. Despite a four-year-long convalescence, his leg remained fragile and he was unable to continue his studies. The injury led to severe health problems later in life.