He worked as an agricultural programmer for the National Planning Institute.
In the Second Government of President Fernando Belaúnde Terry he was chairman of the board of the Banco Agrario del Perú, director of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru, president of the Corporación Financiera de Desarrollo (COFIDE).
He was a member of the board of directors of Banco Industrial del Perú.
On 4 August 1983, he was appointed as Minister of Agriculture by President Fernando Belaúnde Terry. During his tenure as minister, the creation of CERTEX for non-traditional exports was approved. He remained in office until the end of the government in 1985.
On 28 July 1990, newly elected President Alberto Fujimori appointed him as Prime Minister of Peru and also at the same time as Minister of Economy and Finance.
As minister he was in charge of the announcement of the "Fujishock", a measure that proposed a restructuring of prices to control inflation. He resigned from office in February 1991 following the publication of an alternative economic stabilization program, the continuing failure to fight inflation and the crisis caused by a cholera epidemic.
He ran for mayor of Lima in the 1998 local elections under the Vamos Vecino party, losing to Alberto Andrade, who was re-elected for a second term.
On 13 October 1999, he returned to the Fujimori government as Minister of Industry, Tourism, Integration and International Trade Negotiations. He remained in the ministry until 28 July 2000.
He was accused of receiving funds for his electoral campaign from Intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos, for which he went into hiding in 2000. The delivery of these funds is documented in a vladi-videos secretly filmed by Vladimiro Montesinos.[1] Surprisingly, he was handed over to justice on 13 April 2011.[2]
