13 Facts About Felisa Miceli

Felisa Miceli was born on 26 September 1952 and is an Argentine economist, and a former Minister of Economy and Production of Argentina.

Felisa Miceli was appointed by President Nestor Kirchner on January 28,2005, in place of Roberto Lavagna, and was the first woman ever to lead that ministry.

Felisa Miceli resigned to the position on July 16,2007, as prosecutors stepped up an investigation into a bag of cash found in her ministry offices.

Felisa Miceli was a left-wing activist in the 1960s, and later served as Director-Secretary of the Bank of the Province of Buenos Aires during Aldo Ferrer's tenure as bank president between 1983 and 1987.

Felisa Miceli then worked in Lavagna's consultant firm, Ecolatina, in the beginning of the 1990s.

Felisa Miceli was widely considered a follower of Lavagna, and the successful economic policies instituted by the former Minister were expected to continue in force, but Miceli was viewed as more progressive, as well as less independent from the President.

Felisa Miceli denied that increased wages were a source of inflation, attributing it instead to lack of investment to supply rising demand.

Felisa Miceli expressed her intention of conducting a comprehensive tax reform, and reviewing the performance of the private retirement pension fund system, which she considered a failure.

Felisa Miceli supported the debt restructuring and "disindebtment" strategy adopted by the government since the beginning of 2005, which consisted in paying the IMF in time and in full without negotiation when possible, so as to reduce the debt and gain financial independence from it; the final step in this policy was the cancellation of the remaining debt to the IMF in January 2006 with a single payment of about US$9.5 billion.

Felisa Miceli worked with the Central Bank to prevent a revaluation of the peso below 3 per US dollar for the sake of export competitiveness, maintaining a policy of frequent dollar purchases by the Central Bank; the Central Bank's reserves thus surpassed their pre-IMF repayment levels on September 27,2006.

In July 2007, Felisa Miceli was involved in a controversy for a bag containing US$31,000 and AR$100,000 which the police found in a cupboard in her office bathroom.

Felisa Miceli claimed it was money lent to her by her brother as a down payment in a real estate purchase.

Felisa Miceli was found guilty on December 17,2012, and sentenced to 4 years in prison; she appealed the sentence.