With record copper prices, Chile’s finance minister Andrés Velasco is something of a Janus these days – one moment grinning broadly because of the windfall that is coming to the country, the next frowning sympathetically with exporters threatened by the Chilean peso’s strength.

Copper will generate $27bn in exports for Chile this year, according to Eduardo Titelman, executive vice-president at state copper commission Cochilco, generating $11bn of fiscal income and boosting GDP per capita by $1,300 to $8,330 in 2006. Chile has never had it so good, or has it?