THE OTHER CENTRAL BANKER UNDER FIRE

摘要

For the past dozen years, Guillermo Ortiz has servedrnas Mexico's inflation-fighter-in-chief. Since his appointment in 1998, the central bank governor has managed to wrestle down consumer price increas -es from nearly 19% a year to a low of 3.3% in 2005. The Stanford-educated Ortiz has also earned the respect of Wall Street by resisting political pres -sures to loosen monetary policy. In the summer of 2008, he held firm when Mexican President Felipe Calderon called on the central bank to cut interest rates to stimulate the economy. "It would have been a big gamble to lower rates before we were sure that inflation was reaching an inflection point," said Ortiz in a Nov. 26 interview.