Past winners: policymakers.

Alvaro Arzu

As president of Guatemala, Alvaro Arzu will go down in history as the one who put an end to a civil war that battered the country for 36 years. Arzu will also be remembered for having promoted favorable macroeconomic conditions for the private sector. Today, the 57-year-old politician and father of seven is in his third term as mayor of Guatemala City.

What is the most important trend or event of the past 10 years?

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the communist parties of Latin America quit receiving aid from the Soviet Union. Leftist organizations were forced to make ideological changes.... Another factor is the rise of a capitalist, global policy vs. populism. It should be observed that the Latin American right has lacked an authentic ideology. It confused social dynamics with market dynamics. The old, traditional wealth had to become global businesses to cater to regional markets. Before, when new socioeconomic thinking was absent, the anarchic bases of the left gave rise to an old Latin American ghost: populism. Anachronistic phenomena such as Hugo Chavez, Alfonso Portillo, Lula [and] Menem emerged, while the middle class staggered on a tightrope between the two poles.

What about the next 10 years?

During the next 10 years, we will be facing the consequences of all the issues that I have mentioned. For example, in 15 years, we will have gotten over ideological crises. The old generation of radical intellectuals will have completely disappeared from positions of influence and will be completely replaced by a new generation that will be more concerned with plurality and cultural diversity.

Roberto Lavagna

When he became Minister of the Economy of Argentina in April 2002, Roberto Lavagna inherited an economy in shambles. After a US$141 billion default months earlier, Lavagna has faced the tough task of convincing retail bondholders holding almost $100 billion in debt to accept a 75% markdown on the money owed to them. Lavagna talked LATIN TRADE correspondent Patricia Nazario in 2003.

Are the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) and Washington's Free Trade Area of the Americas compatible?

Yes. Mercosur is perhaps Argentina's most important project. You can create free trade in the world using building blocks and Mercosur is one of these building blocks. The end result will certainly be larger [than each individual trade bloc], than just the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

What role will free trade play in Argentina's economic recovery?

It's essential. It is extremely important to open markets, especially in agriculture. Agriculture continues to be the most protectionist and most subsidized sector in the economy at the world level. The European Union in first place, Japan also, and in second place, the United States is still very, very protectionist in this area. It's essential not just for Argentina, but also for the entire developing world, to achieve changes in these policies.

Jaime Lerner

Two-time governor of Parana state in Brazil, three-time mayor of Curitiba and president of the International Union of Architects, Jaime Lerner has a passion for Brazil's urban planning. His work spans the region--Lerner is involved in projects in more than 15 cities in Brazil as well as in Caracas, San Juan, Shanghai and Havana.

What is the most important trend or event of the past 10 years?

We saw that globalization intensified, putting people closer to one another through the advancement of communication. The most important issue focused on the debate between globalization and solidarity. ... There was always intense questioning over which one was more important: globalization or solidarity. I always liked ex-Portugal President Mario Soares' phrase that it's 'necessary to globalize in solidarity.' I find this point was the most important because it puts things into perspective. It's not either globalization or solidarity. What we have to do is globalize solidarity.

What about the next 10 years?

The issue for the next decade will concern the city, because the city is the shelter of solidarity. Thirty years ago, the world awoke to the environmental debate. I remember a meeting in Stockholm, in 1972, that took the environmental debate to an international level. Thirty years later, the world moved to improve itself and show that if something were going bad, it could change. Today I see the world in this debate between globalization and solidarity, where the city will have a fundamental role, and it is there where the answers to transportation, health, education, child care and the environment will lie.

Arminio Fraga

As Brazil's Central Bank president under the Cardoso administration, economist Arminio Fraga helped put an end to the country's historic hyperinflation. When he took the Central Bank's reins in 1999, Brazil was undergoing a strong devaluation of the real. Fraga put the house in order and calmed international markets. Fraga is the owner of Gavea Investimentos, an investment fund.

What is the most important trend or event of the past 10 years?

In Brazil, it was the end of decades of inflation and hyperinflation that came with the Plan Real. In the world, it was the rise of China as a great power. ... In Brazil's case, after decades of great confusion with high inflation and all the consequences that it brought us, including for our self-esteem, we finally found a way to make things right and hold inflation to a more sustainable level. As for China, it was its impact on the world economy and its demonstration to emerging market countries on how it is possible to come from behind and deal with things so you grow an impressive 7% to 9% annually.

What about the next 10 years?

The most important thing in the next 10 years, given that there exists an understanding concerning the road ahead for the economy, is that our attention will return to issues of a more political nature. ... The most important issue of the next 10 years will revolve around the evolution of current geopolitical risks. It's really about knowing whether it will be possible to achieve harmony or if these great tensions are going to continue, or maybe even spread to a global level.

Francisco Flores Perez

Former Salvadoran President Francisco Flores implemented macroeconomic policies that kept his country on the path toward growth despite devastating earthquakes. In 2001 El Salvador adopted the US, dollar, leading to low interest rates today and a stable banking system. Flores backs free trade between Central America and the United States and signed trade deals with Mexico, Chile, the Dominican Republic and Panama.

What is the most important trend or event of the past 10 years?

In our country life in relatively small communities has changed completely into an urban life integrated with the world. What happens today in Argentina has an impact on El Salvador, just the same as [the terrorist bombings] in the Atocha de Madrid train station. Without a doubt integration with the world is the most important phenomenon of the last 10 years.

What about the next 10 years?

Right now the process of economic evolution has overcome the dynamics of political and institutional change in Latin America. In many countries people feel that the new realities of the global economy are against them. That is, the decline of agricultural prices, the transformation of small communities into urban centers and the lack of leeway the larger world shows toward government spending, have led to a series of decisions that have opened the door to populist governments which have promised Latin Americans to reverse the trend. I believe that in the next I 0 years we're going to see a change toward more serious government and leadership with much more willingness to change.

In the world economy two important changes are coming. One is the arrival of an open China. It's really an economic monster that is going to become a big competitor since it has an immense population of workers willing to work at incredibly low wages. It also has centralized control of the economy. The other is that the European Union (EU) has grown to include many countries. We'll see the EU invest more in Latin America and compete with the United States as our main investor.

Pedro Malan

Pedro Malan was born in Petropolis, a mountainous summer resort north of Rio de Janeiro. He studied electrical engineering in Brazil and took a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley. After a decade in New York and Washington, D.C., Malan returned to Brazil in 1993 at the request of an old friend, then-Finance Minister Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who asked him to head Brazil's Central Bank. Fifteen months later, he became Finance Minister himself.

Soon after, Asian markets tumbled and jittery foreign investors abandoned the Brazilian stock market, which lost nearly a third of its value. Experts predicted that Brazil would have to go the way of Mexico and devalue the real. In response, he applied drastic austerity measures. Malan's decisions strengthened the real, tamed chronic hyperinflation from 2,000% per year to 5% and attracted billions in foreign investment while amassing record cash reserves. Unemployment rose, but Malan argued that in the long run jobs were saved. "People are suffering, but they would suffer more if we did not do whatever it takes to preserve the currency," he told LATIN TRADE at the time. "Contributions into our system today are less than the benefits flowing oat. If we can fix that, we will have taken a big step." Malan today is deputy chairman at Unibanco, one of Brazil's largest private banks.

Herminio Blanco

Herminio Blanco is no stranger to brokering deals, having negotiated 28 trade agreements for Mexico, including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Indeed, Blanco--who now heads his own consulting and niche investment bank, Soluciones EstratOgicas--is well versed in how brokered deals often imply a search for common ground.

What is the most important trend or event of the past 10 years?

Without a doubt, the first event that comes to mind is Sept. 11. Sept. 11 has made a huge difference in the world. Is it connected to trade? Well, I would say somewhat. Trade is now different and is going to be different in the future. I do not think we have seen or experienced the full impact of all the changes in security. ... I would also have to add that NAFTA contributed to the change in U.S. trade policy. NAFTA has created many of these agreements.

What about the next 10 years?

I think reform is the challenge for Mexico. NAFTA, for instance, was one of the most important reforms in Mexico. Yet we are light years behind Chile, for instance. Chile has been following the same strategy for the past 30 years. Every year, they achieve some reform to become more competitive. The success in Chile is easily apparent. When you examine the rest of Latin America, we have achieved some progress, some countries more than others. Yet we have not gone all the way. Therein lies the great challenge.

Valentin Paniagua

One of Peru's few politicians to command respect across the political spectrum. Paniagua, a quiet, un-assuming 68-year-old former Cabinet minister and legislator, shot to fame in November 2000, when he was vaulted to the presidency after Alberto Fujimori fled the country for Japan. Paniagua is considering a presidential bid in 2006.

What is the most important trend or event of the past 10 years? For me, the recovery of democracy in Peru and a frontal attack on corruption. ... Democracy has not resolved economic problems. What this shows is that the economic model has failed, which is something the [United Nations] and other international agencies do not want to recognize. ... Democracy is no longer only about voting, but [about] access to education, healthcare, social welfare, employment, and this has not been achieved.

What about the next 10 years?

What we all would like to see is a change in the transnationalization of the economy, particularly the imposition of the Washington Consensus. This is the only way to change the conditions of poverty, which are getting worse in Latin America. ... I am an optimist, I believe that with substantial development in education, technological innovation and scientific research--which are the plans for growth--Latin America can recover the growth levels of the 1960s, when the region led the world in economic expansion.

Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada

The 74-year-old former Bolivian president has been one of the most progressive chief executives in the history of his country. Sanchez created a strategy to privatize state companies by which investors could acquire half of a company while the other half was given to the country's pension funds so that ordinary Bolivians had a stake. "By doing this, a transference of wealth was created that was as important as the agrarian reform of 1952," Sanchez said in an interview with LATIN TRADE Sanchez twice held the presidency of his country. In October of last year, under political pressure from indigenous protestors, he resigned. Though raised in the United States, Sanchez moved to Bolivia at the age of 22 after graduating from the University of Chicago. Among other things, he conducted an investigation into the life of the criminal Butch Cassidy, who met his end in Bolivia. A Hollywood studio bought the rights from him, and in 1969 it produced a film on the events starring Paul Newman and Robert Bedford. Sanchez also founded Compania Minera del Sur, which ended up becoming one of the 10 biggest companies in the country. Today, the ex-president lives in the United States, where he dedicates himself to teaching and research.