Argentina's libertarian president-elect picks a former Central Bank chief as his economy minister
Argentina’s President-elect Javier Milei says he's chosen Luis Caputo, a former finance minister and Central Bank chief who is known as an expert in markets, to lead the Economy Ministry when the right-wing leader takes office on Dec. 10
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Argentina’s president-elect, Javier Milei, announced Wednesday he has chosen Luis Caputo, a former finance minister and Central Bank chief known as an expert in markets, to lead the Economy Ministry when the right-wing leader takes office on Dec. 10.
The pick confirms that Milei, a libertarian outsider, is building a more orthodox team to manage Argentina’s economy, which is suffering from red-hot inflation running at an annual rate of 143%.
“Yes, the economy minister is Luis Caputo,” Milei said in a radio interview shortly after landing from a two-day trip to the United States, where he met with officials from the Biden administration.
As the first finance minister in former conservative President Mauricio Macri's government, Caputo was in charge of a debt restructuring and later became Central Bank chief.
Macri’s party backed Milei in a Nov. 19 presidential runoff election, and his allies now are jockeying for Cabinet positions, leading to some tensions with the president-elect's traditional libertarian allies.
The market has welcomed signs of Milei's more orthodox choices for key Cabinet positions. Argentine stocks and bonds have increased while the local currency, the peso, has appreciated slightly in financial markets since he won the election.
The choice of Caputo is “a wise choice in order to bring some kind of favorable expectations for markets regarding what economic policy is going to look like, at least in the short run,” Nicolás Saldías, a senior
Read more on abcnews.go.com
