Peru’s new FM aims to retain central bank head, calm markets

The former World Bank economist, sworn in late Friday, offers a counterbalance to Peru’s newly appointed left-wing gov’t.

Peru’s finance minister Pedro Francke wants to retain the central bank president after the two men spoke, and said he’s been given room by the new government to implement his economic policies. Francke, a former World Bank economist, was sworn in late Friday night amid earlier investor concern that he wouldn’t take the post following cabinet appointments by President Pedro Castillo, including naming Guido Bellido, a lawmaker who considers the communist government of Cuba to be a democracy, as prime minister. Bellido tweeted his support for Francke’s policies Friday night. “It seemed essential to me to have full support for the economic policy that we had proposed,” Francke said Sunday in his first interview in the new post, adding that he hasn’t had much contact with Bellido before they were sworn in. “Fortunately, that has already been resolved and it seems to me that it gives us space to develop our economic line in a completely safe way.”