Colombia: Gustavo Petro begins shaping his cabinet with a finance minister praised by the markets

The elected president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, begins to form his cabinet of ministers with the appointment of the expert economist José Antonio Ocampo as head of the Treasury, a name that adds to that of the conservative politician Álvaro Leyva, announced last Saturday as chancellor.

Despite being chosen by the left-wing Historical Pact coalition, the president-elect has appointed as his two prime ministers, in important portfolios, two experienced men who They have already held positions in other right-wing governments.

Petro is thus ratifying that the “big national deal” which he proposed after winning the elections, with which he tries to bring the country forward and for which he summoned all the political forces of Colombia.

Ocampo, 69 and a professor at Columbia University (USA), is a prestigious economist with extensive experience in both Colombian public life and international organizations and a name that gives confidence to the markets.

Long trajectory

The new minister is an economist from the University of Notre Dame (USA) and began his public life as Head of the Agriculture portfolio in 1993to the presidency of the liberal César Gaviria.

He left that position the following year to head the National Planning Department with the liberal Ernesto Samper, who later became finance minister.

Between 1998 and 2003, Ocampo was executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and until mid-2007 he was United Nations Deputy Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.

In recent years he has been co-director of the Banco de la República, the monetary authority of Colombia, and also candidate for the presidency of the World Bank in 2012an election he lost to American Jim Yong Kim.

In an analysis published this week in the journal The spectator Before being appointed minister, Ocampo assured that the greatest challenge for the new government is “overcoming social inequalities”.

“The challenges are essentially long-term and require the achievement of greater public social spending and greater efficiency in all sectors of government. as well as an increase in tax revenues“, he expressed.

He also assured that Petro must achieve other goals, among which there are “the prioritization of expenses” in the face of “the immense requests and electoral promises” made by the elected president.

“In addition, there are short-term challenges, associated with inflationin particular food, which requires greater income support for poor and vulnerable families “, he stressed.

He will be affected by the tax reform that Petro wants to approve in his first year of mandate and which, unlike the one promoted by his predecessor, Iván Duque, wants to be more ambitious but aimed at the richest, as he expressed in interviews.

The markets calm down

The fact that Petro has appointed such a moderate and experienced finance minister, will calm the markets, according to various trade union organizations.

“We believe it will give the markets peace of mind and there is a huge responsibility in its hands achieve a healthy balance of public financesthrough fiscal balance without suffocating or hanging the national productive sector in this new tax reform “, said the president of the National Federation of Entrepreneurs (Fenalco), Jaime Alberto Cabal.

The president of the National Association of Colombian Entrepreneurs (ANDI), Bruce Mac Master, said that “there is no doubt that José Antonio Ocampo is one of the most experienced economists” in the country, which is why he believes he is “a person who inspires confidence”.

“The markets will certainly receive it with great satisfaction and it will be its task to generate and build more and more trust around the Colombian economy so that we can have more investments, greater access to credit and, hopefully, even more opportunities for companies”, he assured.

The outgoing Minister of Finance, José Manuel Restrepo, expressed his opinion “best wishes and esteem” to his successor and stated that in this portfolio “he will have a technical team committed to the growth and fiscal and social sustainability of Colombia”.

“We are already in a process of harmonic, institutional and transparent joining,” he added on Twitter.

After the appointments of Ocampo and Leyva in two of the most important portfolios for his government, which will start on August 7, the elected president of Colombia he has yet to appoint the remaining 16 ministers -in a cabinet that promised equality-, as well as the six directors of the administrative departments.

The greatest expectations are brought by the names of the people who will be able to occupy the Ministries of Defense and the Interior, key to the mandate of the Colombian presidents and to be able to glimpse the direction that the Petro government will take in the four years of its presidency on key issues for the country like security.

Source: EFE and AP

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