Haroldo Rodas

Roger Haroldo Rodas Melgar (* May 29, 1946 in Guatemala City ) is a Guatemalan economist, diplomat and politician.

Life

After school he studied from 1964 to 1971 Economics at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, where he graduated with a licentiate. Subsequently, he was intermittently until 1980 Lecturer and then Professor of Economic Integration and International Trade and Director of Applied Economics at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala. He was also a 1979-1980 Executive Secretary of the Federation of Economists of Central America and Panama and also President of the College of Economists of Guatemala.

He also was a member of the diplomatic service and was between June 1974 and June 1976 Permanent Representative to the GATT Secretariat in Geneva and the European Union in Brussels. During this time he also completed from September 1974 to December 1976, a post-graduate studies at the Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva, which he finished with a Master in International Business.

In January 1977, he was chief economist and director of the Multinational Project on International Trade between Central America, Panama and the Dominican Republic to the Organization of American States (OAS ), headquartered in Washington DC and San Jose. He held until December 1985 this office. From October 1987 to December 1990 he was Secretary General of the Unión de Países Exportadores de Banano ( UPEB ), a Central and South American cartel of banana- exporting countries in the form of an international organization based in Panama.

Then Rodas Melgar returned to Guatemala back and was Deputy between January 1991 and June 1992 Minister of Foreign Affairs and was awarded the rank of ambassador.

Then on July 1, 1992, his appointment as the Regional Director of the program to support the development and integration in Central America ( PRADIC ) at the Inter-American Development Bank ( Banco de Desarrollo Interamericano (BID) ). On 1 March 1993 he became International expert in the field of negotiations in the International Trade of the United Nations (UNDP ) development program and held this position until December 1994. Most recently he was from April 1995 to November 2007 Secretary General of the Economic Secretariat of the Central American Integration System ( SICA ).

On 14 January 2008 he was finally appointed by President Alvaro Colom to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. This office he held until January 2012.

Publications

• " Centro América y la Unión Europea.Las Relaciones Comerciales " (PDF, 68 kB), in: Europe América Latina, No. 11, reports and analyzes, Rio de Janeiro, 2003, pp. 34 f