| "There’s no previous professional experience that prepares you to be a central banker. Six years running the Argentine central bank is the equivalent of Alan Greenspan’s 18 years at the Fed" Martin Redrado |
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MARTIN REDRADO’S BIGGEST achievement as governor of the Banco Central de la República Argentina is perhaps his having held the position for so long. If he completes his term in September 2010 he will have been the longest-serving governor since the first one was appointed in 1935. Redrado, 47, is the 55th governor since Ernesto Bosch in the 1930s, an indication of the social and economic instability that has afflicted Argentina since before the Second World War.
Redrado is facing one of the most testing periods since he assumed office in September 2004: the finances of the central government have become increasingly shaky and it is having to consider ever-more drastic ways of raising money. The Argentine media speculate that the government led by president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has its eye on the central bank’s reserves of $44.5 billion. Last November, the state nationalized the private pension funds (AFJPs) and got its hands on a pool of Ps80 billion ($21 billion).