Peru is seeking countries like Spain to boost economic development through private investment geared towards new sources of growth, Economy-Finance Minister Alfredo Thorne affirmed on Monday.
Speaking during
"Peru of the Future" forum in Madrid, the government official noted the country now intends to take its integration with Spain "to the next level."
"We said it during the [presidential] campaign. We did not believe it [mining boom] would be a permanent thing, and we knew we had to look for other growth sources," the Finance head recalled.
"And the first source we identified was infrastructure," he pointed out.
In this sense, the economist explained Peru is looking for partners like Spain and Portugal, which can "allow us to keep pushing growth forward."
Mining investment
"In this context, we need to continue attracting mining
investment through administrative simplification," he affirmed.
To this end, he noted President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski's administration has made a "significant legal adjustment" by virtually re-structuring the regulatory framework for Public Private Partnerships (
PPPs).
"The idea is to provide a major boost to private projects," he noted.
In this sense, Minister Thorne informed the government has identified around 12 mining projects valued at US$18 billion, "and the idea is to bring the bulk of these forward."
Lastly, the economist highlighted Peru's mining strength, considering said sector contributed half of the economy's 4% growth in 2016.
(END) MDV/JJN/DHT/MVB