Ambassador of Peru to the State of Qatar, Jose Benzaquen, during an interview with The Peninsula. Pic: Abdul Basit/The Peninsula
Doha: Terming Qatar-Peru ties as ‘excellent’, Ambassador of Peru to Qatar, Jose Benzaquen, has said that both the countries are working on a mutual investment agreement that ‘will promote and protect our bilateral relations’.
“We are working on a comprehensive investment pact that will be likely finalised within next three months and it will encourage investments between the two countries,” the Ambassador said in an interview with The Peninsula.
He said that Qatar-Peru relationships are based on political and diplomatic cooperation, mutual respect and sharing of common values. “Peru considers Qatar an important country in the global diplomacy and we knew this fact from the day when we decided to open our Embassy in Qatar in 2011.”
The Ambassador noted that Qatar had great role in international political scenario. “This region of the Gulf is important to us, therefore we selected Qatar to open our Embassy on a priority basis in 2011.”
He said that Peru was undergoing massive economic improvement in the last fifteen years, at the same time his country had contained the inflation successfully and created more commercial contacts with regional and international countries.
“We predict that the Peruvian economy will grow by an average of 4.4% during the 2019-2020 period, driven, among other factors, by increased private investment. We believe in our President Martin Vizcarra Cornejo, who expressed that ‘we are committed to ensuring that Peru is an accessible and safe country for doing business, with clear and stable rules. We pledge to faster investment, innovation, and diversification, with the goal of promoting a modern economy marked by growing productivity and competitiveness, based on national entrepreneurship driven by micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises’.”
Benzaquen said that Peru and Qatar had already signed a significant number of Memorandums of Understanding and agreements in recent years to form a solid base for a future strengthening of bilateral cooperation.
These include an agreement on cooperation and joint news exchange; an MoU on the establishment of political consultations between the two Ministries of Foreign Affairs; an MoU in the field of education, higher education and scientific research; an MoU in the field of mining; an MoU between trade and industry chambers of the two countries; and an MoU on investment cooperation.
The Ambassador added that Peru was blessed with precious minerals like gold, copper, silver, zinc etc. “Now the Peru government has made a commercial strategy that focuses on export of goods made of these minerals and metals. For example, we want to export copper plates, wires, small pipes, etc. and not only the raw copper, and for it we need technology that we can find in Qatar.”
Likewise, he said that his country was promoting its ties with Qatar in education, culture and sports fields.
“I recently had a relevant meeting with Qatar’s Minister of Culture and Sports in which it was decided that both countries would further promote their cultural ties.”
Talking about the bilateral trade, the Ambassador said that though the current volume was not high but it had the potential to grow significantly in coming times. “From January to March 2019, Peru exported goods worth QR3.4m to Qatar, mostly agricultural products as well as pharmaceuticals while it imported different goods worth QR4.8m from Qatar which include petrochemicals and construction material among others.”
He said that Peru has also gas reservoirs and Qatar could invest in this sector with all of its expertise and technology according to the leadership of Qatar in this field of energy.
The Peruvian Ambassador commented that Peru and Qatar had similar priorities as both nations focused on education, health, environment, sports, peace, gender equality and human rights.
“Peru always supports Qatar’s initiatives, resolutions, and candidates in international organisations.”
The Ambassador termed the official visit of Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to Peru in October last year highly successful in which a number of mutual agreements were signed.
Expressing pleasure over Qatar hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the Ambassador said that he plans to coordinate to bring the Peruvian football team to Qatar for familiarisation before the 2022 World Cup.
To a question, the Ambassador answered that over 100 Peruvian nationals are residing in Qatar, who are working at good positions in Qatar Airways and other reputable companies.
In the sector of tourism, the Ambassador said, Peru and Qatar are promoting the visitors from both sides through an agreement on short stay visa waivers for ordinary passports, to follow the signed agreement for the holders of diplomatic and special passports.
The Peruvian Ambassador said: “Peru and Qatar are going to formalise the Air Services Agreement which will be signed this August. This bilateral instrument, leads to substantial benefits, as allowing international commercial air transport services between territories and promoting international air link between the two countries, which supports and enables movement of people, cargo, trade and tourism.”
