Dr. Mario Arana
April 4-14, 2007
Until January of 2007, Mario Arana was the president of the Central Bank of Nicaragua. He is currently an independent consultant working on economic development and trade issues. Among his present clients are the United Nations and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. He was the minister of finance from 2005 until 2006, and from 2002 until 2004, he was the minister of economic development, industry and trade, where he successfully led the negotiations of the free trade agreement between the United States and Central America. Nicaragua is the country with the highest growth in its trade with the United States in Central America after CAFTA was implemented. Arana has been a leading figure of the process of regional integration in Central America and has coordinated the Presidential Commission on Competitiveness. He has been a governor for Nicaragua at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. As a minister of the technical secretary of the presidency, he coordinated the formulation and implementation of the Nicaraguan Poverty Reduction Strategy and Public Investment Planning.
Prior to joining public service, he was a consultant and advisor for multilateral organizations, transnational companies, as well as an academic. He has served on the boards of public and private corporations and organizations. He has published research on macroeconomic and adjustment policies, external debt, poverty and public expenditures on social programs. He earned a PhD in economics from the University of Texas at Austin.
