Peru - Brazil Strategic Alliance

Peruvian President Ollanta Humala and his Brazilian counterpart Dilma Rousseff on Monday celebrated the 10th anniversary of their countries' strategic alliance with the signing of three bilateral agreements in Lima. 

Brazilian investment in Peru is likely to soar six-fold to US$34 billion over the next 20 years, within the framework of the two countries' strategy partnership, the Peru-Brazil Chamber of Commerce and Integration (Capebras) has reported. 

Economy

Peru is one of the few countries in Latin America that will show strong economic performance in 2014, according to the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The IMF estimates Peru's economy growing by 5.7 percent in 2014, which is higher than its forecasts for Chile (4.5%), Colombia (4.2%) and Mexico (3%). 

Peru has made remarkable progress in reducing poverty and malnutrition as a result of the key role played by the government's social programs in recent years, European Union (EU) Ambassador to Peru, Ireme Horejs said Monday. 

Peru's private investment promotion agency ProInversi�n plans to grant 37 transport, energy, infrastructure and water projects in the next two years, its executive director Javier Illescas said.

Among the biggest projects to be awarded are Cuzco's US$556 million Chinchero airport concession, and the construction of the US$3 billion Sur Peruano natural gas pipeline. Both projects are expected to be granted in quarter one 2014. 

According to a new report released by digital publication Latinvex, Per� has the second best infrastructure in South America.

Chile was ranked as having the best infrastructure in South America, and Venezuela the worst.

The Commission for the Promotion of Peru for Exportation and Tourism (PROMPERU) is reporting that Peruvian packaging businesses that attended the Andina Pack 2013 conference were able to solidify deals worth US$9.4 million. 

Diplomacy

Agriculture

Current rock-bottom prices for coffee beans - below cost for many of the region's growers - and a crushing outbreak of coffee leaf rust, a fungus that slashes harvests, are making their lives a misery.

The problem is at its most intense in Mexico, Central America and Peru, which together produce roughly 30 million 132-pound sacks a year of Arabica, the beans used in top-end coffees. 

Archaeology

First discovered 19 years ago, the massive, 5,000-year-old city of Caral is still being explored by archaeologists. Recent finds at what might be the earliest city in the New World have included a small public building on the outskirts of the site that was connected with the core area by a road. Archaeologist Ruth Shady, who heads the Caral Archaeological Area, says she and her team are at work on 11 other settlements that belong to the Caral period, which lasted more than 1,000 years.  

Environment

THE nineteenth conference of parties (COP19) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will run for the next two weeks in Warsaw, Poland. The main outcome expected from this meeting is to put in place a road map with clear milestones for reaching a major new climate change agreement in two years time at the twenty first COP (COP21) which will be held in December 2015 in Paris, France. There will be one more COP in Lima, Peru in December 2014 a year from now before we get to Paris in December 2015. Some of the major issues that will need to be discussed and resolved are described below. 

In its heyday, the Pastoruri glacier in central Peru drew daily throngs of tourists packed into dozens of double-decker buses that travelled 5,000 metres high into the Andes. Visitors would ski, build snowmen and scale its dizzying peaks. 

Culture

The Peruvian-born novelist Daniel Alarc�n -three years after being named one of The New Yorker's "20 Under 40"- has written a second novel, At Night We Walk in Circles, that deals with its context much more concretely. A product, in part, of time the writer spent in Peruvian prisons, conducting interviews for Harper's, the story is all flesh and blood, set once again in an unnamed city but with a newly vivid sense of place. Beautiful and compellingly told, the novel sets out to answer the basic question of how to live a good life in a bad place. So we begin with Henry, the broken, irascible, and heartsick former head of Diciembre, an influential theater troupe forged in the years when the unnamed country was wracked by war, coups, and chaos. "Diciembre felt less like a theater collective and more like a movement," Alarc�n writes. 

The Royal Opera House Muscat (ROHM) will host internationally acclaimed Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Fl�rez tomorrow, at 7:30pm.
Fl�rez will sing a variety of songs accompanied with the National Orchestra of Spanish. The concert will include his famous interpretations of Spanish zarzuela songs and opera arias from Cinderella, Light Cavalry, The Elixir of Love, Roberto Devereux and others. 

Turns out the British Invasion didn't just wash over American shores: theBeatles, in particular, were hugely influential pretty much everywhere - including Peru, where a band called Los Ecosrecorded "Me Siento Fel�z," an instrumental cover of "I Feel Fine" that premieres today on Speakeasy. 

Gastronomy

The freshest fish. A squeeze of lime. A sprinkling of chopped chili. Maybe a pinch of salt. For the Lima-born, London-based chef Martin Morales, the very essence of Peruvian cuisine can be stripped down to these simple ingredients. The result is ceviche, which is the name of both Peru's national dish and Morales's buzzing restaurant in London's Soho neighbourhood, where you can get contemporary takes on grilled skewers ( anticuchos ) and whole fish cooked in banana leaves ( patarashca ) along with six versions of the house's namesake dish. 

Tourism

Peru's northern area is set to attract around US$ 566 million in hotel construction investment until 2015, fueled by an increased tourist flow from overseas and within the country, organizers of Expo Hoteles & Cubiertos Internacional reported Monday. 

Miscellaneous

 A little more than a half hour by car from the touristy Lima of fine cuisine and breezy seaside promenades is the soup kitchen where Juan Barrueta, an 84-year-old candy vendor, pays less than a dollar for lunch.

The dusty, chaotic peripheries of this capital of 9 million people bulge with dirt-poor peasants, many of them transplants from the Andean highlands who pour in every day, unprepared for life in the big city. Most join the more than 60 percent of Peruvians in the informal economy.

 

Peru may have failed to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, but that doesn't mean that they won't be completely left out of the festivities. According to Andina news agency, Peruvian cotton will be used to make uniforms for six teams participating in the World Cup. 

Since July sales at Gamarra have dropped 50 percent compared to the previous year, and the merchants have lost nearly one-third of the market to cheap Chinese imports, according to Diogenes Alva, head of the main Gamarra business association.

David Chen, a Chinese businessman who arrived in Peru ten years ago looking for work, recently opened his own operation to import garments from Asia.
"Business is going well because the Peruvian providers do not have enough products or accessories to offer," Chen said. "They can't compete with the prices of China or India."