EMBASSY ROW
Just as President Enrique Peña Nieto was beginning a three-day working visit to Peru and Argentina, newly arrived Peruvian Ambassador to Mexico Julio Hernán Garro Gálvez hosted a diplomatic reception at the Club Naval in Lomas de Chapultepec to mark his country’s 195th independence anniversary on Wednesday, July 27.
The national day celebration came just as Peru’s newly elected head of state, Pedro Pablo Kaczynski, a center-right former World Bank economist, was about to take the oath of president after narrowly winning out a June 5 run-off election against the left-leaning Keiko Fujimori (daughter of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, now in prison on charges of corruption and running death squads).
Kuczynski, who will replace the Andean nation’s outgoing left-of-center president, Ollanta Humala, will take office on Thursday, July 28, and Peña Nieto is slated to attend the swearing-in ceremony.
“I am particularly honored to host this Peruvian National Day reception … which is framed by a very special and auspicious political event, the swearing in of President Pedro Pablo Kaczynski as our country’s new supreme leader,” Ambassador Garro Gálvez told his guests.
“And I have no doubt that in this new era in Peruvian national politics we will continue to promote bilateral relations with Mexico, just as we have in the past.”
Garro Gálvez went on to say that since presenting his diplomatic credentials to Peña Nieto in May, he has witnessed strong interest on both sides to foster two-way cooperation.
He pointed out that, in addition to the exchange of several high-level visits in the last two years (including a state visit to Lima by Peña Nieto in February 2015), the first binational Strategic Association Council was held last March between the chancellors of both countries in order to increase political and economic cooperation.
By the same token, Garro Gálvez said that in June, a Mexico-Peru Friendship Group was established within Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies.
Garro Gálvez also spoke about bilateral commercial and economic cooperation, noting that Mexico is now Peru’s eighth-largest trade partner.
“In 2015, our combined trade surpassed $2.2 billion, representing a 25 percent growth over the comparable figure for five years ago,” he said.
Mexico and Peru signed a two-way free trade accord in 2012, and Mexico currently exports electronics, medical equipment and automobiles to Peru.
Peru, in turn, sells Mexico natural gas and minerals.
Garro Gálvez also said that cultural exchange is a key part of the bilateral relationship, adding that his government recently presented an exhibit of Inca art and a exhibition of works by Peruvian artist Victor Delfín.
He likewise said that his country had been represented in a recent gastronomic festival in Morelia, Michoacán, and Mexico would be participating in a food fair in Lima come September.
By the same token, Garro Gálvez said that Peru will be represented by the National Peruvian Children’s Chorus at the International Cervantine Festival (FIC) in Guanajuato in October.
After the speech, internationally acclaimed Peruvian singer Tania Libertad, winner of the 2009 Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, made a surprise entrance and offered a concert of some of her greatest hits.
Peru proclaimed its independence from Spain on July 28, 1821.
Led by José de San Martín of Argentina and Simón Bolívar of Venezuela, the Peruvian people achieved their full emancipation in December 1824, when General Antonio José de Sucre defeated the Spanish troops at Ayacucho and ousted the Iberian colonists from the entire region.
Spain made countless futile attempts to regain its former colony, but in 1879, it finally recognized Peru’s independence.
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