FOGAPI was constituted on November 24 from 1979 by initiative of: German Society of Technical Cooperation (GTZ); the Financial Development Cooperation (COFIDE); the Association of Small and Medium Industrial Enterprises of Peru (APEMIPE); the National Society of Industries (through COPEI), the National Service of Training in Industrial Work (SENATI), and the Industrial Bank of Peru (today liquidated). The Foundation is inscribed in the record Nº 2008 of the Juridical Registration Office of Lima.

FOGAPI has a structure with the participation of entities involved in the problematic of the SME because the doctrine and the international experience advise in the participation of a system of guarantee. 

Therefore, FOGAPI, is not a Guarantee Fund of transitory character, but juridical personality expressed through a Foundation of private nature, without purpose of lucre according to the doctrine and the law. In this sense, FOGAPI works with autonomy and independence, without more limitations than the applicable legal classification as Foundation (like entity of the Financial System) regulated and supervised by the Superintendence of Banks.