By Carolyn Gray Anderson
As U.S. Ambassador to Argentina under President Barack Obama, Noah Mamet (bolstered a positive bilateral relationship in the areas of entrepreneurship, education, clean energy and global climate change, repeatedly looking to his home state — and to UCLA in particular — as an exemplar of progress in all these areas.
Ambassador Mamet recently took part in a conversation with Argentine native Adjunct Associate Professor Andres Terech (Ph.D. ’04), the event sponsored by UCLA Anderson’s Center for Global Management, and drilled down on the economic and trade challenges facing Latin American countries, including a U.S. aversion to problem of inflation in places like Argentina. Mamet said it’s the biggest challenge for managers doing business there today, as local salaries sometimes need to increase as much as 42 percent from one day to the next. One impediment is Argentina’s slowness to invest in infrastructure. “When the cost of energy goes up, it’s hard to control inflation,” he said.
A third of Argentina’s GDP is held outside the country, suggesting a mistrust of domestic reinvestment, which may deter outside investors, too. Mamet said a one-time tax amnesty that invited Argentines to declare their overseas assets revealed $130 billion in investments that the government wants to attract back to the country. “Bank information sharing was a game changer,” said Mamet. “It was the most successful tax amnesty in history.”Mamet believes tech will boost the economy and encourage international trade. Among perhaps six Latin American unicorns, four came straight out of Buenos Aires, said Mamet, making Argentina a contender for world markets.
Robin Colocho (’18), who has traveled to South America with UCLA Anderson global immersion courses aspires to work for a company with operations in Latin America, spent time in Argentina last summer and observed that many Argentines seemed wary of banks. He said, “Unfortunately, the distrust in economic policies has created a vacuum for innovation. I hope President Macri will focus on building confidence in local banks and promote innovation among them.”
Mamet and Terech agreed that President Mauricio Macri’s landslide midterm election went a long way to reassuring foreign investors, as well as voters. He recalled that Macri, the former mayor of Buenos Aires, had been sworn in as president only a couple of months before the December 2015 Paris climate accord, but Argentina’s outdated party line on global warming managed to travel to Paris. Mamet worked on Macri’s behalf to make sure the country’s official position changed 180 degrees in one day, making public its commitment to slow greenhouse gases.
“I took notice of Argentinians’ concerns over the U.S. presidential elections,” said Robin Colocho (’18), who has traveled with UCLA Anderson global immersion courses to Colombia and Peru and spent time in Argentina last summer. “Their main concern was to maintain the growth of their economy post-Kirchner, but felt that the Trump administration would threaten this growth.”
Mamet initiated the Friends of Fulbright Scholarship, which provides short-term opportunities for travel and study abroad in order to serve more people than the competitive and expensive Fulbright scholarships. The program gives Argentine undergraduate students the chance to attend classes at an accredited U.S. university and participate in cultural immersion activities that include community service. “The best way to combat anti-Americanism, if it exists,” said Mamet, “is to afford Argentine people an experience in the U.S.”
Chilean Cristian González (’18), co-president of Anderson’s Latin American Business Association, took an interest in Mamet’s comments because of the former ambassador’s track record spearheading initiatives in education, entrepreneurship and clean energy in Latin America. “In emerging economies such as Argentina, there are significant opportunities for innovation that could propel our countries to global leadership positions and economic prosperity,” he said.
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Posted by: Jessica Denial | 02/14/2018 at 03:39 AM