Peru economy expands for fourth straight month in July

LIMA (Reuters) -Peru's economy expanded for the fourth month in a row in July fueled by all sectors except agriculture, official data showed on Sunday, continuing the country's recovery following a recession last year.

The 4.47% year-on-year growth in the month, according to the INEI statistics agency, outdid an estimate from the chief economist of Peru's central bank last week, who expected expansion of around 4%.

He cited larger investments as expected to help the recovery, in line with a government target of 3.2% growth for the year in the country that is the world's third-largest copper producer.

The July growth marks a significant jump from the month before, when Peru logged an economic expansion of 0.21%.

Manufacturing in July rose 10.91% while the mining and hydrocarbons sector expanded 3.10%, driven by metallic mining activity including growth in molybdenum concentrate and silver.

However, production of zinc, copper and iron decreased.

The agriculture sector shrank 3.93%, due to smaller planted areas, weather issues and some early harvesting, which led to lower volumes of olives, dry beans, paprika, potatoes, cocoa and hard yellow corn.

The Andean country has for years been one of South America's top economic performers. However, last year, the economy shrank 0.6%, affected by adverse weather, lower private investment and ripple effects from anti-government protests that hit mining.

(Reporting by Marco Aquino, Writing by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Andrea Ricci)