By Joseph Guyler Delva
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Aug 5 (Reuters) - The woman recently ratified by Haiti's parliament as the poor Caribbean country's new prime minister on Tuesday vowed to spur fresh investment, if she wins final approval to take office.
"If my program is approved by parliament, I will immediately take action to create the necessary environment to facilitate investments," said economist Michele Pierre-Louis.
She still has to appear before both legislative chambers to present a formal declaration of her policies, which must win parliamentary approval, before Pierre-Louis can take the prime minister's office.
Pierre-Louis, who was ratified by Haiti's Senate on Thursday after previous ratification by the lower house of parliament, was President Rene Preval's third choice for prime minister.
Two previous candidates were rejected, creating a difficult three-month impasse after the last government was dismissed over food price riots.
Pierre-Louis said her efforts to bolster investment in the country would focus on all potential sources of new capital, foreign and domestic, as well as international donors.
"We need to create jobs in order to provide a certain purchase power to the population that is facing a rising cost of living and an acute food crisis," she told a news conference.
She said her government would also seek to foster new spending on national production, particularly food production, along with energy, infrastructure projects and security.
Pierre-Louis, who would become Haiti's second female prime minister, also outlined a series of austerity measures to limit nonessential government spending and help buoy the economy of the poorest country in the Americas.
Before her nomination by Preval, Pierre-Louis was a director of a foundation that provides libraries, youth education programs and women's networks in Haiti.
She has also been the director of FOKAL, a foundation supported by billionaire investor George Soros' Open Society Institute. (Editing by Chris Wilson)