The president of the Foundation for the Development of Guatemala (Fundesa), Juan Carlos Paiz, presented a current overview of the country, following participating in the conference “Towards Growth with Inclusive Social Development” in which Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA).
The director explained that this organization last came to Guatemala a decade ago and “now decided to come because of the conditions of democracy that exist and the progress, as well as the expectations to invest and make the country grow.
In the business community, is there more trust perceived?
Giving the benefit of the doubt to the president -Bernardo Arévalo-, he is being transparent and managing a fairly clean agenda; For me it is one of the main confidence indicators that investors are seeing.
Now what we all have to do is execute the projects and investments that the Minister of Finance -Jonathan Menkos Zeissig- mentioned, because there is money for the works, but the procedures are not there.
In your opinion, what more is needed?
Willpower. The president mentioned it: investors have confidence, although the country has to develop a better investment climate. We have to do it as a country and keep it with our word. Not only for the foreign investor, but for the local one. The latter is investing (economic growth comes from the local); Foreign investment has improved and is at US$1.4 billion, which is still a third of the local investment.
Today what we want is for this growth to reach and help everyone to have a more developed country.
“Strategic segments must be developed for nearshoring and that requires a more grounded plan”
Juan Carlos Paiz, president of Fundesa
What would be the trigger to achieve those conditions?
The trigger is the ability to execute projects because they already exist. And that includes the design, pre-investment, bidding, resource allocation, execution, quality and investor confidence, so that resources reach all corners geographically and do not remain only in Guatemala City. -.
Over time, what would be the goal or objective?
I’m starting to see Amazon, Walmart, Chiquita and they are all saying that they are going to invest. But we must develop strategic segments for the nearshoring and that requires a more grounded plan of cost structures so that they compete internationally.
In this first year of Government, what would be expected?
That all anomalous contracts be cleaned, since many contracts that are ill-intentioned are being found. And that the pre-investment also begins to be made, to have a flow of future projects.
What would be expected at the country-risk table meeting?
We will meet next March 22 and we haven’t done so for some time. But no one has a better interest rate than the country. Let us remember that agencies evaluate confidence in the economy.
Realistically, can we reach investment grade?
We are still two steps away, but we believe that this time there will be social investment and that is what we are asking for here.
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