Alfonso Prat-Gay | |
---|---|
Minister of the Treasury and Public Finances of Argentina | |
In office 10 December 2015 –2 January 2017 | |
President | Mauricio Macri |
Preceded by | Axel Kicillof |
Succeeded by | Luis Caputo (Finance) Nicolás Dujovne (Treasury) |
President of the Central Bank | |
In office 11 December 2002 –24 September 2004 | |
Preceded by | Aldo Pignanelli |
Succeeded by | Martín Redrado |
National Deputy | |
In office 10 December 2009 –10 December 2013 | |
Constituency | City of Buenos Aires |
Personal details | |
Born | Buenos Aires,Argentina | 24 November 1965
Political party | Civic Coalition ARI (2009-2013) Radical Civic Union (2015–present) |
Other political affiliations | Cambiemos (2015–present) Broad Front UNEN (2013) Social and Civic Agreement (2009–2013) |
Alma mater | Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina University of Pennsylvania |
Signature | |
Alfonso Prat-Gay (born 24 November 1965) is an Argentine economist and politician. Following the election of Mauricio Macri to the presidency on 2015,he became Minister of Economy. [1]
He was also President of the Central Bank of Argentina from December 2002 to September 2004,and was elected National Deputy for the Civic Coalition in the 2009 elections.
A decade later,as Minister of Economy in the Macri administration,he lifted four-year-old capital controls on the Argentine currency,a mere six days after taking office. [2]
His work earned him Euromoney's Central Bank Governor of the Year award. [3] Prat-Gay is also a member of Washington D.C.–based think tank,The Inter-American Dialogue. [4]
He is considered an orthodox liberal who has a good image in the markets and fluent contacts abroad. [5] However,Prat-Gay has been a political ally to leftist Victoria Donda and some economists like Javier Milei consider him to be a socialist or a socialdemocrat.
Prat-Gay was born in Buenos Aires in 1965,the son of Jorge Prat-Gay. He earned a degree in economics from the Universidad Católica Argentina in 1989,and obtained his master's degree in 1994 at the University of Pennsylvania,where he was a PhD candidate. [6]
In 1994,Prat-Gay joined JP Morgan in New York City and went on to work for the bank in its Buenos Aires and London branches until 2001. He co-founded APL Economía,an economic consulting firm.
Prat-Gay is Chairman of Tilton Capital,an asset management company he co-founded in 2005 with Pedro Lacoste. [7] He is president of Fundación Andares para el desarrollo de las Microfinanzas ("Andares Foundation for the Development of Microfinances"). [8] His clients at Tilton Capital included the late María Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat,former chairperson of Argentina's largest concrete manufacturer,Loma Negra. Prat-Gay's work for Mrs. Fortabat came under scrutiny after revelations that Tilton Capital facilitated tax evasion and capital flight for Fortabat and other clients,including the entirety of Mrs. Fortabat's billion-dollar payout for her sale of Loma Negra in 2005. [7] The vice president of JP Morgan Argentina at the time,Hernán Arbizu,declared that Prat-Gay managed much of this wealth in an offshore hedge fund of his creation with put options against the Argentine peso. [9] He was appointed executor of the Lacroze de Fortabat estate following Mrs. Fortabat's death in 2012. [7]
In December 2002,Prat-Gay was named President of the Central Bank of Argentina,at only 37 years of age,and served until September 24,2004. [10] He won the 2004 Euromoney Central Bank Governor of the Year award for his work for having reduced the inflation from 40% to 5% while maintaining an economic growth of 8%. [11] He completed his term and rejected President Néstor Kirchner's offer to renew his position for another six-year term,due to disagreements with the president on the independence of the Central Bank,anti-inflationary policies,and on negotiations on defaulted bonds. [12]
He joined the Civic Coalition,led at the time by Elisa Carrió,and was named as Carrió's choice for Minister of the Economy had she won the 2007 presidential election. [6]
Prat-Gay led the Civic Coalition's party list for the city of Buenos Aires in the 2009 congressional elections,and was handily elected. [13] As a Congressman,he worked on projects such as increasing banking security,preventing money laundering and drug trafficking,and an extensive deregulation of the Argentine financial system. He was a main voice of the opposition in Congress on economic issues. He was named head of the Civic Coalition caucus in the Lower House following Elisa Carrió's poor showing in the 2011 presidential election.
Prat-Gay co-founded the Juntos UNEN ('Together They Unite') alliance with centrist UCR Congressional caucus leader Ricardo Gil Lavedra,and Victoria Donda of the leftist Freemen of the South Movement in January 2013. He declared his candidacy in July for a seat in the Argentine Senate ahead of the 2013 mid-term elections. [14]
Prat-Gay was appointed Minister of Treasury and Public Finance in December 2015,by the new President Mauricio Macri. [15]
One of the first changes to economic policy from the Macri administration,just seven days after he had taken office,was to remove the currency controls that had been in place for four consecutive years. The move signified a 30% devaluation of the peso,and was met with both criticism and praise. [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]
Prat Gay eliminated export taxes on wheat,corn,meat and fishing,the industry and mining,while it promised to lower the tariff on soy 5% every year. [21] [22] [23]
For the next year,he eliminated the Advance Affidavits of Importation (an import control program) and extended Careful Pricing (a price control program) for six months. [24] [25]
Since 2016,began the removal of energy subsidies (for electricity,gas and water) and transport subsidies (for bus,train and subway),which caused a huge increase in prices. He avoided to use a shock therapy and introduced the changes gradually. [26] [27] [28]
On January 19,Prat Gay and Macri went to the World Economic Forum in Davos,Switzerland with Sergio Massa and part of his cabinet looking for investments. He had meetings with various business representatives,politicians and journalists. Some of them were US Vice President Joe Biden,the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,David Cameron,the founder of Virgin Group Richard Branson,CEO of Google Eric Schmidt,the Queen of the Netherlands,President and CEO Coca-Cola,Muhtar Kent among others. [29] It was the first time that Argentina participates since 2003. The last president was Eduardo Duhalde. [30]
He successfully ended the sovereign default declared in 2001. Prat Gay returned Argentina to the internacional capital markets and helped to restore international relations. [31] [32]
"Argentina is back,and I hope you enjoy it."
Minister Prat Gay at the Atlantic Council,Washington,D.C.,U.S.,on April 14,2016. [33]
Political intervention in the INDEC figures ended,and the IMF declared in November 2016 that Argentine statistics were again in accordance with international standards. [34]
Among the most notorious vulnerabilities of the administration was an extremely high inflation rate:it was 40% in 2016 (while the Central Bank expected an inflation rate of 17% for 2017,10% for 2018 and 5% for 2019). [35]
He had conflicting views of the economy with Federico Sturzenegger,president of the Central Bank of Argentina.
By demand of president Macri,he resigned on December 26,2016,and was succeeded by Nicolás Dujovne. [36] [37] [38]
Civic Coalition ARI,until October 2009 known as Support for an Egalitarian Republic,is a centrist political party in Argentina founded in 2002 by Elisa Carrió.
Elisa María Avelina "Lilita" Carrió is an Argentine lawyer,professor,and politician. She is the leader of Civic Coalition ARI,one of the founders of Cambiemos,and was National Deputy for Chaco Province and Buenos Aires. Carrióis considered a liberal,Christian,and heterodox politician in Argentina.
Mauricio Macri is an Argentine businessman and politician who served as the President of Argentina from 2015 to 2019. He has been the leader of the Republican Proposal (PRO) party since its founding in 2005. He previously served as 5th Chief of Government of Buenos Aires from 2007 to 2015,and was a member of the Chamber of Deputies representing Buenos Aires from 2005 to 2007. Ideologically,he identifies himself as a liberal and conservative on the Argentine centre-right.
Republican Proposal,usually referred to by its abbreviation PRO,is a political party in Argentina. PRO was formed as an electoral alliance in 2005,but was transformed into a national party in 2010. It is the major component of the Juntos por el Cambio coalition,and its leader is former Argentine president Mauricio Macri,who is the party's president since May 2024.
Martín Lousteau is an Argentine economist and politician of the Radical Civic Union (UCR). He is a National Senator for the City of Buenos Aires. Since 2023,he has been President of the UCR National Committee.
Francesco Raùl Macri was an Italian-Argentine contractor,developer,industrialist and father of former Argentine President Mauricio Macri.
Legislative elections were held in Argentina on 27 October 2013. Open primary elections (PASO) were previously held on 11 August 2013 to determine eligible party lists for the general election. As in 2011 –when such primaries were held for the first time –each party list had to reach a 1.5% threshold at the provincial level in order to proceed to the 27 October polls.
General elections were held in Argentina on 25 October 2015 to elect the President and National Congress,and followed primary elections which were held on 9 August 2015. A second round of voting between the two leading candidates took place on 22 November,after surprisingly close results forced a runoff. On the first runoff voting ever held for an Argentine Presidential Election,Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri narrowly defeated Front for Victory candidate and Buenos Aires Province Governor Daniel Scioli with 51.34% of votes. Macri's vote count of nearly 13 million votes made it the highest number of votes any candidate has ever received in Argentinian history until Javier Milei's victory in the 2023 presidential election. He took office on 10 December,making him the first freely elected president in almost a century who was not either a Radical or a Peronist.
Juntos por el Cambio is a political coalition in Argentina. A liberal coalition,it was created in 2015 as Cambiemos,and renamed in 2019. It is composed of Republican Proposal,Radical Civic Union,Civic Coalition ARI and United Republicans.
Marcos Peña is an Argentine politician,author and political scientist who served as Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers during Mauricio Macri's presidency.
Argentina installed foreign exchange controls in 2011,at the beginning of the second presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Those controls limited the ability to buy or sell any foreign currency. The restriction was informally known in Argentina as Cepo cambiario. The controls were lifted in 2015,at the beginning of the presidency of Mauricio Macri.
The following lists events that happened in Argentina in 2016.
The inauguration of Mauricio Macri as president of Argentina took place on December 10,2015. It followed a rocky presidential transition and a dispute over ceremonial protocol between outgoing president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and president-elect Mauricio Macri.
The presidency of Mauricio Macri began on 10 December 2015,when Mauricio Macri was sworn into office on 10 December 2015 to a four-year term as president of Argentina. Macri took office following a 51.34% to 48.66% runoff ballotage win over Daniel Scioli in the 2015 general election. He is Argentina's first democratically elected non-Radical or Peronist president since 1916. In elections of October 2019,he lost his re-election bid for a second term and was succeeded by Alberto Fernández as president. Macri is also the first incumbent president in Argentina and South America's history to be unseated by a challenger and not reaching a second term.
Nicolás Dujovne is an Argentine economist and former Minister of the Treasury between 2017 and 2019 under the administration of Mauricio Macri.
Luis Andrés "Toto" Caputo is an Argentine economist who is the current Minister of Economy under Javier Milei's presidency,having assumed office on 10 December 2023. He previously served as Minister of Public Finances from 2017 to 2018 and President of the Central Bank of Argentina in 2018.
The Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy Law was approved by the National Congress of Argentina in 2020,legalizing abortion in Argentina. The first draft of the bill was created in 2006 by the National Campaign for the Right to Legal,Safe,and Free Abortion,which sought to have Congress consider it in seven different occasions,to no avail.
The Frente de Todos was a centre-left political coalition of political parties in Argentina formed to support President Alberto Fernández and Vice President Cristina Kirchner.
Jorge Roberto Hernán Lacunza is an Argentine economist,appointed in 2019 as Minister of the Treasury of the Mauricio Macri administration.
Paula Mariana Oliveto Lago is an Argentine lawyer and politician. She is currently a member of the national Chamber of Deputies elected in the city of Buenos Aires for the 2021–2025 term. She is also president of Civic Coalition ARI (CC-ARI).