The Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that Peru signed with the United States, promulgated on December 14 in Washington by the President of the United States, George Bush in the presence of his counterpart Alan García Pérez, will generate new challenges in the microfinance industry Peru, while the Implementation Law of the trade agreement is being executed in the coming years.
New investments will come, domestic demand will increase, exports and imports of capital goods will grow, the exchange rate will undergo some adjustments, tourism will grow and growth will be sustainable. That is, with a responsible and austere management of the economy, there will be a bonanza and even economic optimism.
But while it is true that NAFTA will bring new job opportunities for Peruvians, it will also generate certain limitations in some so-called "sensitive" sectors, such as agriculture, precisely where the poorest in the country work. However, the commercial agreement will boost medium, small and micro enterprises, allowing the microfinance industry to also generate new opportunities for SMEs and MSEs.
In Peru, the microfinance industry has developed more successfully in the provinces at the initiative of the municipal savings bank system for approximately 25 years and has successfully entered almost all strata of the city of Lima. This pioneering and outstanding work has been strengthened by various microfinance entities such as edpyme, rural banks, savings and credit cooperatives and non-governmental organizations, including in recent years, some commercial banks have entered this sector. In this way, Peru, together with Bolivia, are the leading microfinance countries in Latin America due to their experience and business management in favor of the poor.
From this perspective, the poverty that has its roots in human settlements, urban-marginal and rural communities, as well as in the ethnic groups of the Amazon, finds in the microfinance industry a strong defense to continue advancing. NAFTA will allow small businesses to farmers to have access to the world's great markets, especially more than 300 million new consumers. Let's not forget that in the last three years, trade between Peru and the United States has roughly doubled by $ 9 billion.
Among the benefits of the FTA that may be applied in 2009 is the elimination of tariffs on about 80% of US products sold in Peru, while other taxes will be eliminated in the coming years. That is, more than two-thirds of US agricultural exports to Peru will not pay tariffs and in approximately 2015, no taxes will be paid for any product. That means there will be more Peruvian products to be marketed in the United States, apart from the new and higher investments in all sectors.
For these reasons, the microfinance industry will be one of the most dynamic sectors of the Peruvian economy in the following years. It is therefore urgent that from now on, this ruble is prepared to assume new roles that range from the frontal fight against poverty to the formalization of new small businesses. If microfinance is becoming the columns of economic growth, then it is urgent to strengthen public policies in favor of the national majorities.
Why is microfinance key to economic growth? Because the globalization process reveals to us that employment does not exist forever. In Peru there are new generations of entrepreneurs who require microcredits to get ahead. Entrepreneurial culture is already a reality in the country. There are more than three million productive and commercial units and this number is increasing.
These ventures that generate innovative companies will dominate the market in the coming years, because innovation is the basis for sustainable economic development. In schools and universities, students are already developing their entrepreneurial skills, a situation that will generate an offer that must be satisfied in the following years. The entrepreneurial culture will find in NAFTA the great opportunity to develop and promote a new economic order in the country.
