Chinese textiles in Peru – Newshour, BBC World Service

Living and reporting in the Peruvian capital, Lima, I started to hear tales of textile traders going out of business. In this report for Newshour on the BBC World Service I spoke to a handful of locals who told me how cheap Chinese imports were to blame.

The district of Gamarra in Peru’s capital, Lima, is home to the biggest textile market in Latin America. In recent years the industry there has suffered at the hands of a free trade agreement between the Peruvian government and China signed in 2010 – and in just the past year it’s though that more that 5,000 Peruvian companies have gone out of business – unable to contend with the cheap fabrics coming in from across the Pacific. With more from Lima, Simon Parker reports.

You can listen to the full report here.