Since his term began in July 2006, President Alan Garcia has mailed out more than 300 dispatches to invite top businessmen from Chile and 51 other countries to invest in Peru.
Garcia’s press secretary released the information to Peruvian journalists to head off criticism about a story published Sunday in the Chilean daily La Tercera, which mentioned only the letters addressed to Chilean executives.
The article almost immediately fueled nationalistic, anti-Chilean fervor, until the Government Palace clarified that the administration was courting investment from dozens of countries, and not specifically Peru’s neighbor and historic rival south of the border.
“I send you this letter so that you may know about Peru’s interest as well as my personal will to count on the presence of your company in our country. Peru has become a fundamental centre for the development of South America,” and offers “the guarantees and securities” of a modern and competitive economy, wrote Garcia in the letters.
The dispatches, which invite foreign business magnates to Garcia’s private Government Palace office, contain specific information and statistics concerning Peru’s recent economic growth and mention that Peru is hosting two international events in 2008: the EU-Latin American Summit held last May and the Asian-Pacific Economic Forum Summit to be held in November.
Recently, 60 letters were sent to Chinese entrepreneurs, 40 to Brazil, 30 to Japan, 30 to Chile 30 to Colombia, 3o to Korea, 20 to Germany, 20 to France, 20 to Spain, 20 to Italy and 20 to Argentina.
In Chile, invitations were sent to Horst Paulmann, the head of Cencosud, a large conglomerate that bought out Peru’s Grupo Wong’s chain of supermarkets in January, as well as José Said, head of Parque Arauco, Lázaro Calderón, general manager of Ripley and, among others, Ramón Aboitiz, president of Engineering and Construction Sigdo Koppers (ICSK), the company excavating Peru’s Yanacocha mine, the largest gold mine in South America.
Beyond attracting these investments to Peru, since the letters were sent out, more than 60 foreign business delegations from Chile, Russia, Mexico, China and Ecuador have visited the Andean country, including billionaire Carlos Slim, president of Telmex.
