Ocampo, a progressive liberal politician, already held that portfolio during the presidency of Ernest Samper between May 1996 and November 1997, before he was elected as executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC). Back in 2003, he was elected as deputy secretary of United Nations.
The 69-year-old economist is one of the most renowned in Colombia and is co-author of books with the Nobel Prize winner Joseph StiglitzThe Republic reported. He advocated a more “active” use of the exchange rate and defended the commodity export tax.
Gustavo Petro is confident that Ocampo’s appointment will also serve to streamline the new tax reformwhich, he stressed, has to be presented this year to repeal the 2019 one and with which he hopes to raise at least 50,000 million Colombian pesos (11.4 million euros).
In that sense, he pointed out that the implementation of this tax reform will be a good first touchstone of the “coalition of majorities” that he seeks to forge for the coming years in Colombia.
“If a coalition of majorities is going to be forged, but the tax reform is not approved, accepting the discussions and changes that always happen, since there was no coalition of majorities. It is a way to try it now,” said the leftist politician and former guerrilla.
Gustavo Petro explained that the new tax reform will eliminate exemptions and benefits to the highest incomes in Colombia and will review the payment of taxes by companies, quite the opposite, he said, that the one carried out by the former Minister of Finance Alberto Carrasquilla, whose weight fell “on the poorest layers of the population”.
In the event that Ocampo’s appointment as the new Minister of Finance is confirmed, this would be the second name that would appear in the future Petro cabinet, after the former Minister of Mines and Energy Álvaro Leyva has already been appointed as the new head of Relations Exteriors.
Source: Ambito
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