Speaking to MAP, Mr. Bustamante stressed that the parliamentary delegation he leads will include José Cueto, the President of the Congress Intelligence Committee, and Patricia Juarez, President of the Constitutional Commission of the Peruvian Congress.
“This is a visit that we are making with great expectation, because we are going to be able to meet very important personalities within the Moroccan government, both from the House of Representatives and the House of Advisors and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” said the Peruvian MP.
The parliamentary delegation will also hold talks with officials from the National Human Rights Council (CNDH) and will be received by the President of the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs (CORCAS), in addition to visits to Casablanca, Dakhla and Tangier, he pointed out.
Mr. Bustamante is convinced that the different stages of this visit “will allow us to bring closer and consolidate relations between Morocco and Peru”.
Regarding economic relations between the two countries, the president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Peruvian Congress deplored that trade exchanges are below the capacities of the two countries.
Mr. Bustamante highlighted in this regard the opportunities available to the two countries in terms of trade, particularly seafood products, of which Peru is the world’s leading exporter, in addition to fruits and vegetables.
Estimating that Morocco’s potential demand for seafood products would be “at least 100 times greater than what Peru exports”, the Peruvian MP stressed that the two countries have “a fairly large trade margin”, particularly through the revision of customs duties on fruit and vegetables.
In the other direction, Peru mainly imports phosphate derivatives from Morocco, he pointed out, adding that the trade balance is largely in surplus in favor of the Kingdom.
To boost these exchanges, he said, “it is necessary to exchange trade delegations and organize fairs” to explore business opportunities between the two countries.
Asked about the position of the Peruvian parliament on the Moroccan Sahara issue, the president of the Foreign Affairs Committee recalled that the recognition by the government of his country of the so-called sadr is due to “ideological reasons”, in addition to the influence of Venezuela and the “close relations” that the political party in power in Peru, from which President Pedro Castillo comes from, enjoys with the party that leads the government in Bolivia.
“I think it influenced Peru’s re-establishment of relations with the sadr,” he said.
“However, as a Parliament, we expressed, within the framework of our function of political control, our opposition to what happened,” he pointed out.
The recognition of the so-called sadr by the government “does not mean that it is necessarily an expression of the Peruvian people. Because the Peruvian people are represented by the parliament, and the parliament adopted a resolution two months ago in which we specifically expressed our disagreement with the reestablishment of relations with the sadr,” he underlined.
The message that the Peruvian parliamentary delegation wants to deliver to Rabat concerns Peru’s desire to “maintain optimal relations with the Kingdom of Morocco”, he concluded.
Source: Agency Morocaine De Presse