LIMA (Commodity Online) : Closing the gap with its neighbor and world’s top copper producer Chile, Peru said it is now ranked second in global copper production.

According to Peru's National Association of Mining, Oil and Energy, the country became world's second largest copper producer with a total production of 1.273 million metric tons in 2009.



Peru followed Chile whose copper output soared to 5.41 million tons in 2009 and displaced the United States as the second largest copper producer.

The U.S. produced 1.19 million tons of copper last year.

Amid the contraction in demand of metals caused by the international crisis in 2009, investment in Peru's mining sector was $2.18 billion last year, and the energy sector attracted a total of $4.88 billion last year.

Peru's mining exports in 2009 reached $16.01 billion , which represented 60 percent of the total exports of the country, according to the association.

Peru is also the world's largest silver producer, second in zinc, third in tin, fourth in lead and sixth in gold production.

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