Peru’s manufacturing industry lacks environmental regulations, according to Minister of Environment Manuel Pulgar-Vidal.

Although a 1997 law mandated industries’ environmental impact be regulated, the difficulty of imposing a single law for all industries led the country’s ministries to develop specific regulations for their sectors, Gestión reported.

"Unfortunately, there have been several governments, and to date nothing has been done to upgrade environmental standards and create those that are missing," Pulgar-Vidal said.

He estimated that over 50 percent of the manufacturing industry does not have its own environmental regulations.

"Of the nearly 40 existing sub-sectors in manufacturing, the regulated ones are only the cement, beer, paper, tannery, and paints industries,” he explained to Gestión.

The minister announced his office would work with the Ministry of Production to tackle the underlying problem.

He emphasized that the Ministry of Environment had issued a resolution early this year, aimed at driving authorities to complete environmental regulations.

"This is a process that may take time because you can not make a single regulation, because each subsector has its peculiarities to be taken into account," he said.

Pulgar-Vidal said this legislation would also allow for the implementation of sanctions.

“We do not have the legal framework to do it, so we simply can not monitor where there are no obligations," he said.

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