Colombia Names Its Top IMF Official to Be Central Bank Governor

(Bloomberg) -- Colombia’s central bank elected as its next governor the nation’s top representative at the International Monetary Fund in Washington.

Leonardo Villar, 61, helped co-ordinate Colombia’s response to the financial crisis and housing market crash in the late 1990s. When he takes over as bank chief in January, he’ll oversee the country’s efforts to haul itself out of an even worse slump, after the economy suffered its biggest contraction in more than a century.

The central bank cut interest rates seven times between March and September, and is now pausing to gauge the strength of the rebound. Inflation slowed to a 65-year low last month, potentially giving Villar and his colleagues some leeway to cut further if the recovery stalls.

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The economy recovered strongly between July and September, as the government eased pandemic curbs. Even so, that was nowhere near enough to undo the devastation of the mass job destruction and bankruptcies in the second quarter.

Villar, who studied at the London School of Economics, served on the central bank’s board as a co-director from 1997 to 2009. In the late 1990s, he helped oversee Colombia’s introduction of inflation-targeting and a floating exchange rate.

When he was head of Fedesarrollo, an economics think tank, he argued that Colombia could lift millions out of poverty by eliminating rice tariffs.

He’ll take over from outgoing Governor Juan Jose Echavarria on Jan. 4.

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