Regions of Peru Regions of Peru The regions () of Peru are the first-level administrative subdivisions of Peru. Since its 1821 independence, Peru had been divided into departments () but faced the problem of an increasing centralization of political and economic power in its capital, Lima. After several unsuccessful decentralization attempts, the legal figure of "region" became official and regional governments were elected to manage the departments on November 20, 2002, until their planned fusion into real regions. Under the new arrangement, the former 24 departments plus the Callao Province have become regional circumscriptions. The province of Lima has been excluded from this
Mineral industry of Peru No. 868 of May 1996 (Texto Unico Official) provide guaranteed protections to mining ventures and contracts under the Peruvian Civil Code. Consequently, such ventures and contracts are immune from unilateral changes by any governmental authority in Peru without an appropriate legal or administrative remedy or arbitration by the Convenio Constitutivo del Centro Internacional de Arreglo de Differencias Relativas an Inversiones (Formal Consent of the International Center for Settlement of Relative Differences on Investments). Additionally, Peru enacted the Supreme Decree No. 047-2002-EF of April 2002 (import duties for capital goods) to reduce the duties paid to 7% from 20% and 12%