Colombian President-elect Juan Manuel Santos, who is currently in Spain in an official visit, on Friday named Sergio Diaz Granados as his trade minister and Carlos Rodado Noriega as his minister for mining and energy.
Both men are natives of the Caribbean coast, and have close links to Santos’ Partido de la U.
Diaz Granados is a Liberal and a Santa Marta native. He gained his degree from Colombia’s Universidad Externado before becoming a lawyer. He was a Santa Marta town councilor 1995-1997 and Congress representative for Magdalena 1998-2000. Throughout 2001 he advised Juan Manuel Santos at the Ministry of Finance and currently holds a professorship at the University Sergio Aboleda.
Rodado Noriega, from Sabanalarga, Atlantico, is a Conservative and an economics graduate. He gained his PhD in economics from the University of Chicago and Michigan in 1973. In 1981 he was made minister of mining and energy under Liberal government of Julio Cesar Turbay and in 1991 was elected to the Congress as representative for Atlantico.
Noriega also served as president of Ecopetrol, Colombia’s state-run oil company. In 2003 he was elected governor of Atlantico and in 2008 he was named ambassador to Spain by President Alvaro Uribe.