No U-turn on Peru’s port policy

“Ports belong to all Peruvians and not just to some workers in Enapu (Empresa Nacional de Puertos) who think they are the owners of the ports and the only users” Garcia emphasised, after making it clear that “the Government will guarantee the functioning of the ports and the external commerce of the country”.

President García said that he had no intention of allowing a small group of less than 1,000 people with “antique ideas” to stop the country’s ports being able to compete with the high technology facilities in Ecuador and Chile. The syndicate (union) members “should abandon their obsolete thesis that ports should only modernise with State funds, since in the modern world, all countries now invite foreign capital to participate in the modernisation of their ports.

Peru has no capacity to invest the nearly US$400m that is required on average to modernise each port and it is vital that that the concessioning goes ahead in order to allow the private sector to begin the port modernisation process, Garcia explained.