Cairo, May 2 (EFE) .- The “Logistics” challenge is the key for Peru to make the most of its commercial potential in the Middle East, a region of the world where also the possibilities of investment in the Andean country are “very attractive”, according to Efe the Peruvian Chancellor Elmer Schialer.
Schialer summed up in a telephone interview with Efe from Riyadh of his five -day tour of the region, which took him to taste, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in order to expose before the governments, entrepreneurs and sovereign investment funds the Peruvian disposition to attract capital and commercial partners in an area of the world to which “the priority that was required.”
In a positive tone, the minister recognized the “interest and attractiveness” that these four countries have for Peru and said he had discovered “with great pleasure” that Peru “is also very attractive to them”, with its multimillionaire portfolio of investment in energy and mining and its thriving agribusiness, which can penetrate a market that imports “70 billion dollars a year in food.”
As indicated, the tour, the first to this region of a Peruvian chancellor in more than a decade, sought to give “concrete, very operable content” to bilateral relations with the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, where clearly the “economic” is fundamental, with the commercial aspect focused on agribusiness and that of investments in capital collection for the energy and mining sector.
In that context, Schialer stressed that the “common challenge” to face is logistics so that fresh and frozen foods in Peru can reach these markets, something that cannot be “a problem.”
“We have only 11.7 million dollars of sales to the area (…) The problem (to improve those figures) cannot be logistics. Our main client is China, we sell them everything and there is already a perfect arrangement to get the perishable time. If we can reach China, it is not impossible to get here from Peru,” he said.
In that sense, he pointed out that there are already air services agreements with Qatar and Kuwait and said he hopes that others will soon arise with Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
In fact, promoting air services agreements was key on this trip, in order to “have the necessary institutional framework to commercially evaluate how Peru can be reached more efficiently.
“Qatar Airways business on its flights to Brazil is the load, not people. That is what we have to generate (so that the route to Lima is extended). If we are going to be able to face with the friends of the Gulf what they call food security, the truth is that the plane is the logistics tool par excellence,” he said.
As for investments in Peru, Schialer highlighted the interest he found in Emirates for the Los Chancas Mining Project (Apurimac), in which an investment of about 2.5 billion dollars is estimated.
“It does not mean that they will come, but the interest has woke up,” he said.
During the trip, there was also talk of Peru’s possibilities as an actor in regional economic mechanisms such as the Pacific Alliance or the Andean community, which “allows expanding the potential markets of companies that are present in Peru.”
“Also that investments are considered to work under the rules of origin that Peru already has, which could be a platform to export to the countries with which we have agreements. It can be a good platform, even to get to Canada or the US. That is something interesting that they liked,” he said. EFE
