Paz, the 58-year-old son of a former president, and a pro-business conservative, drew applause at the swearing-in ceremony on Saturday at the Bolivian seat of congress. Aljazeera reported.
God, family and country: yes, I take the oath of office,” said Paz, who won a run-off election last month.
In his inauguration speech, he later said Bolivia would now be open to the world after two decades of left-wing governance.
The Movement Toward Socialism party, founded by charismatic former President Evo Morales, had its heyday during the commodities boom of the early 2000s, but natural gas exports have sputtered, and its statist economic model of generous subsidies and a fixed exchange rate has collapsed.
Paz will have to address Bolivia’s worst economic crisis in 40 years, with year-on-year inflation at more than 20 percent and a chronic shortage of fuel and dollars.
The outgoing government of Luis Arce exhausted almost all of Bolivia’s hard currency reserves to prop up a policy of petrol and diesel subsidies.
On the campaign trail, the Christian Democrat Paz promised a “capitalism for all” approach to economic reform, with decentralisation, lower taxes and fiscal discipline mixed with continued social spending.
