Diego Borja
Who is Diego Borja?
He is the new economy minister in Ecuador.
Why watch him?
As the third economy minister in the eight months since President Alfredo
Palacio took office, he will have his work cut out to survive the ten months
left of the government ´s mandate. His predecessor, Magdalena Barreiro, was
sacked because of her poor political skills, and Borja will have to contend with
a hostile congress and the high-spending demands of an electorate who have
become thoroughly disillusioned with Palacio's government. Six out of ten
Ecuadoreans are classified as living in poverty.
Born: 1 May 1964
Place of Birth: Quito
Educated: He obtained his first degree from the Universidad Católica del Ecuador in 1988 and later studied for three postgraduate degrees. He speaks Spanish, English and French.
Public Life: He is married with three children. He worked as a management consultant before becoming chairman of Expoflores, a flower exporting business. He has also worked as a technical consultant on innovation in the Andean region on behalf of the Andean Community and led a competitiveness project in Quito sponsored by the Corporación Andina de Fomento.
Timeline
1988: Obtains undergraduate degree in economics from the Universidad
Católica del Ecuador.
1993: Graduates with distinction in economic sciences from the
Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium.
1995: Gains MA in economics, with distinction, at the Université
Catholique de Louvain in Belgium
1996: Passes postgraduate diploma in management at the INCAE school in
Costa Rica.
2000-2004: General manager of Corpifuturo Ltd, a management consultancy.
2002-2003: Administrator of Transformation Process in Barcelona, Spain.
August 2004: Appointed executive president of Expoflores in Ecuador.
Strengths
For the moment, he remains a somewhat enigmatic figure; a successful businessmen
who has worked almost exclusively for the private sector, he nonetheless has
links with a number of leftist groups. This ambiguity could allow him some
initial leeway with a wide range of Ecuadorean society. He also inherits a
ministry which is not in bad shape; thanks to the actions of his predecessors,
he has about US$1bn to play with, although he has already stated that he will
not succumb to the temptation to ramp up spending ahead of October's
presidential and legislative elections.
Weaknesses
He is young and a relatively inexperienced political operator. He appears to
have quite a subtle economic philosophy, combining concern for social investment
with a desire to embrace globalisation, which he may find hard to implement,
given the extreme pressures of the position and the febrile political atmosphere
in the country. Congress made significant, populist changes to Barreiro's budget
and her handling of the resulting situation was part of the reason for her
dismissal. Borja is likely to find congress similarly recalcitrant.
Prospects
At first glance, Borja appears to espouse a mixture of the radical populism of
Rafael Correa, Palacio's first economy minister, and his more sober successor,
Magdalena Barreiro. Barreiro managed to get Ecuador back into the international
money markets, after issuing bonds worth US$650m in December, the first
operation of its kind since the country incurred a moratorium on its external
debt issue in 1999. The former minister was going to use this money, together
with another US$400m from the Latin American reserve fund, to restructure
Ecuador's debt.
Whether Borja will follow this line remains to be seen. In an interview with the Quito-daily El Comercio, Borja said his first priority was macroeconomic stability, the second, economic growth, and the third, a reduction in unemployment. He said that dollarisation would continue and expressed cautious enthusiasm for the free-trade agreement currently being negotiated with the US; this attitude is bound to put him into conflict with a significant sector of Ecuadorean society, particularly those who work in agriculture.