Peru to award $6.15 billion in post-flood rebuilding contracts through 2021

Peru plans to award at least $6.15 billion in post-flood construction contracts through 2021 in expedited bidding rounds that have already drawn new companies to the country, Peru's reconstruction czar told Reuters Thursday.

Pablo de la Flor, tasked with ensuring that infrastructure destroyed by recent floods is rapidly rebuilt, said a quarter of the funds was intended to prepare El-Nino-prone Peru for the kind of extreme weather expected to increase with climate change.

Projects costing nearly $600 million should start this year followed by works costing $2.2 billion in 2018, helping to spur economic growth that slowed sharply in the wake of a brutal rainy season, de la Flor said.

Sudden and severe flooding in Peru this year killed more than 100 people and wrought some $4 billion in damage to infrastructure, or about 2 percent of gross domestic product.