LIMA�Peru President Alberto Fujimori has appointed a new board of directors to Copri, the government�s privatization commission, and the appointments appear likely to advance privatization efforts in the country's energy industry.
Presiding over the board will be Federico Salas, head of the cabinet of ministers. Formerly the mayor of Huancavelica, Salas competed unsuccessfully with Fujimori in the recent presidential elections and has also been appointed minister of education.
The other six Copri directors are Minister of Economy and Finance Carlos Bolo�a, who actively promoted privatization in his first term as minister during 1991-93; Energy and Mining Minister Jorge Chamot; Agriculture Minister Jose Chlimper; Transport, Communications, Housing, and Construction Minister Augusto Bedoya; Labor Minister Edgardo Mosqueira; and Industry, Tourism, and Integration Minister Gonzalo Romero.
Salas, Bolo�a, Chlimper, Bedoya, and Romero all come from the private sector.
Business people hope that the number of board members supporting private enterprise will help reactivate the privatization process, which has stalled over the past 4 years. The only hydrocarbons projects on the list are the gas and liquids transport and distribution concessions for the Camisea fields and the remaining shares held by the state in the former La Pampilla refinery.
Private investors are pushing for the privatization of the Talara oil refinery and the Mantaro hydroelectric complex, both of which President Fujimori has said will not be privatized. Other hydrocarbon assets still pending are the Conchan and Iquitos refineries and the North Peruvian Pipeline extending from producing fields in the northern jungle over the Andes to the Bayovar marine terminal on Peru�s north coast.
