Peru Rejects Banco del Sur (1)

Peru has no current plans to join the Banco del Sur, the regional development bank being promoted by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and to a lesser degree Argentina’s Nestor Kirchner. Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia have pledged their support to the bank, which detractors say is a politically motivated institution destined to fail. “We are not going into the Banco del Sur at the moment. We have other worries on our minds,” José Arista Arbildo, Peru’s vice minister of finance, tells LatinFinance. The bank, seen more as a Chavez political ploy than an answer to pan-regional development, has been in discussion for months, though no firm action appears to have been taken.