Colombia's Petro picks Jose Antonio Ocampo as finance minister

Colombia's leftist President-elect Gustavo Petro has picked Jose Antonio Ocampo to be finance minister in his government when he begins his term in August, he said on Thursday.

Ocampo, an experienced public servant who previously served as the minister of finance in the government of former President Ernesto Samper, among other positions, is currently a professor at Columbia University in the United States.

"Jose Antonio Ocampo will be our finance minister (to) build a productive economy and an economy for life," Petro said in a message on Twitter alongside a photo of the two men standing side by side.