Peru Eyes Strategic State Control Over Energy Sector

Peru's new Prime Minister Guido Bellido told Reuters that the state plans to participate in key industries, including natural gas and new hydroelectric projects, under a new leftist administration.

Photo Insert: Iquitos Nueva Thermoelectric Plant

Bellido, the top aide to newly-inaugurated President Pedro Castillo, said the government will also seek to create new public companies, a shift for the Andean nation which in recent decades has focused on divesting its state-controlled corporations, Marco Aquino and Marcelo Rochabrun reported for Reuters.

Castillo, a former elementary school teacher, and Bellido are now poised to tilt Peru sharply to the left if they can surmount the significant hurdle of getting greenlit by the opposition-led Congress.

They have also established a committee to keep inflation in check, Bellido said, and shore up the waning strength of the local sol currency, which is at a historic low against the dollar largely due to higher political risk, analysts say.

Peru's more moderate Economy Minister Pedro Francke will be in charge of the committee, he said, adding - "We need to stop the dollar's rise" against the local Sol currency.

Francke initially balked at serving under the newly elected party's more hardline prime minister, sparking a last-minute impasse minutes before he was supposed to be sworn into the cabinet.

Bellido said that Francke would be expected to consult with the rest of the cabinet. "Everything is a dialogue, nobody can have an island, the economy is not an island," he said.

WEEKLY FEATURE : PAL READY TO SOAR WITH PANDEMIC