MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Technocrats and academics in Chilean president elect cabinet

Piñera hopes that by 2018 Chile will become a developed country

Chilean president-elect Sebastian Piñera presented on Tuesday a cabinet of business leaders and academics, with economist Felipe Larrain as Finance minister and Juan Andres Fontaine as Economy minister.

Larrain is a Harvard University-educated economist and Fontaine, a University of Chicago-trained economist who chairs Chile’s electronic stock exchange.

Piñera, a billionaire businessman, tapped leaders from Chile's prosperous retail sector as well as lawyers and economists to help steer one of the region’s most stable economies.

Piñera has vowed to boost economic growth to 6% a year, create 1 million jobs and reform state companies like the world’s leading copper producer Codelco, to make them leaner and more efficient.

”(We must) recover our capacity for growth and job creation,“ Piñera said in an address to his future cabinet and their relatives and guests in the patio of a museum that was Chile's first government house.

”Let it be clear that ... we will strengthen the state, not weaken it, because in many areas we need a stronger, better state,” he said.

“Let’s start with a diagnosis: after 12 years of economic stability and growth (between 1986 and 1997) when Chile grew more than 7% per year, we entered a period of 12 lean years (1998 to 2009), characterized by stagnation and decline. Our government aims to end these 12 lean years and implement a new way of governing, with a new relationship between government and citizens”, Piñera added saying that “by 2018 Chile will have become a developed country, without poverty”.
Chile's central bank has estimated that the economy shrank 1.9% in 2009, and forecasts an expansion of 4.5% to 5.5% in 2010 as the nation emerges from its first recession in a decade.

Piñera appointed his campaign chief, lawyer Rodrigo Hinzpeter, as Interior minister, and Alfredo Moreno, a director of retailer Falabella, as foreign minister.

For Defence minister Piñera tapped a former minister from the rival coalition that he defeated in a January presidential run-off, ending 20 years of center-left rule.

Lawyer Jaime Ravinet had served as Defence minister under a previous government of the ousted coalition. He said he had reluctantly resigned from his Christian Democrat party, which described him as a “black sheep” for joining Piñera's cabinet.

President-elect Piñera takes office next March 11.