Ecuador’s New Economic Ministry Sets Six Vice Ministries

Ecuador’s new Ministry of Economic and Productive Development has confirmed the six vice ministries that will organize its work after a broad government merger.

The change follows Executive Decree 425, issued by President Daniel Noboa on June 24, 2026. The decree ordered the absorption of the former Ministry of Economy and Finance into the production, foreign-trade, and investment structure, as well as the agriculture, livestock, and fisheries structure.

The new ministry assumes the competencies, functions, representations, delegations, rights, and obligations of the institutions that were merged.

The six vice ministries

The ministry will be organized around:

1. Finance.
2. Economy.
3. Production, Industry and Tourism.
4. Foreign Trade and Investment.
5. Agricultural Production and Rural Development.
6. Aquaculture and Fisheries.

The structure puts fiscal management, economic planning, industrial policy, trade, investment, agriculture, and fisheries inside one institutional frame. For companies, the key question is not the label of the ministry but which office will make a decision, issue a rule, or manage a process after the transition.

Why the merger matters

The government says the structure will coordinate the economic and productive chain more integrally, from public-finance stability and economic planning to production, industrialization, new markets, and exports.

The ministry is led by Sariha Moya, who previously led the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The merger creates an opportunity to align policy across sectors that are often commercially linked but administratively separated.

It also creates an implementation risk. A decree can define institutional responsibility while businesses still wait for updated procedures, contact points, staffing, and implementing rules.

What to watch

Companies should track official changes to permits, export processes, investment contacts, agricultural programs, and reporting requirements. The relevant signal will be whether the six-part structure reduces handoffs or simply moves them into a larger organization.

For investors and policy readers, the near-term question is execution: how quickly the new ministry translates the legal merger into a working operating model.