The Peruvian economy has been growing steadily for more than five years as a result of economic openness, access to new markets and investments in strategic sectors. Macroeconomic statistics show this and its main indicators reveal that this trend will continue in the coming years.
However, in parallel with the increase in GDP, inflation control, a rise in net reserves and a boost to exports, there are social sectors that still do not enjoy the benefits of growth.
It is precisely in the emerging social sectors where microfinance is transformed into basic tools of social development, through the formation and strengthening of small and micro enterprises, which in turn generate various types of employment. These new jobs are located between survival businesses and sole proprietorships, to family businesses that have various job offers.
Without in Peru, 96.6 percent of entrepreneurs are in SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) and MSEs (Micro and Small Companies) and there are more than three million productive and commercial units, it is easy to deduce that most of the jobs is in this sector. Statistics reveal that it is the most dynamic sector of the economy and the one that is constantly creating job restructuring of all kinds.
Even the impact of the international financial crisis was cushioned in part by SMEs and MSEs that, due to the size of their economies, did not feel the consequences of the crisis. We know that it is still premature to affirm or deny results, but judging by what is happening in the world, especially in the United States, Japan, China and the European Union, the crisis in Latin America is in a final phase.
The microfinance industry should not only be seen as a financial tool for small companies, but as the manager in the formalization of hundreds of companies that to access credit must be formally incorporated companies. Many informal businesses are now legally constituted by the demands of the microfinance industry.
The so-called microcredit has also played a very important role in the generation of new jobs. Some of these do not necessarily go to Mypes, but to the so-called “communal banks”. Through this social strategy, thousands of entrepreneurs, especially women's groups, have developed business activities as Andean, urban-marginal or Amazonian Mype providers.
The experience of women weavers from the Amazon and high Andean communities, market vendors (paraditas) in marginal areas of the coast, canillitas "kiosqueros" and artisans from any geographical area demonstrate this.
Microcredit is a tool used basically by Non-Governmental Development Organizations (NGOs) and unsupervised institutions, mainly of religious origin such as World Vision International, Adra Ofasa, Compassion, Diakonía, Swiss Mission and Foundation against Hunger among others.
But microcredit is also a financial product of municipal banks, savings and credit cooperatives, rural banks and SME Development Entities (Edpyme), organizations that are supervised by the Superintendency of Banking, Insurance and AFP or by the Federation National Savings and Credit Cooperatives, respectively.
In general terms, the microfinance industry in Peru is a proven valid option to generate new and greater jobs.
