The new prime minister of Haiti, Gerard Latortue, was the guest at a small lunch this week hosted by The New York Sun and its columnist, Raymond Joseph of the Brooklyn newspaper Haiti Observateur, who is now Haiti’s envoy to Washington. Mr. Latortue recounted the unlikely series of events that led to his taking over. He was a business consultant living in Boca Raton, Fla., when he heard on the radio at 4 p.m. that a council of sages in Haiti had named him prime minister. The next morning at 10 a.m., he was on a plane to his homeland.

Mr. Latortue’s description of conditions in Haiti was a reminder that for all the complaints about poverty here in America, we live in an incredibly rich country. He said that in Port au Prince, there is a maximum of five hours of electricity a day. In the rest of the country, there is hardly any electricity. Indoor plumbing is rare.

He spoke of the need to “try to restrict the role of government.” He gave as an example that Haiti has historically required the signature of the president or prime minister to create a corporation. That creates an obstacle to private enterprise and an opportunity for corruption, he said. He said that in his administration, the Haitian president would no longer appoint the director general of the Haitian telephone company — a practice that had been another opportunity for corruption.

The prime minister also spoke of the advantages of lower taxes. “I believe it is good economics to reduce tax in order to attract more and more people to come and invest,” he said. He said Haiti was to some extent a “victim of French culture,” particularly the culture of a French intellectual and cultural elite that are “not pro-business.” He spoke of the need for the American Congress to pass the Haiti Economic Recovery Opportunity Act, a bill that would give duty-free status to apparel imports to America from Haiti. “That, to me, will be better than any money coming to Haiti, because that will create jobs, he said.

One of the features of the bill before Congress is that it spells out certain responsibilities for Haiti, including “a market-based economy that protects private property rights… and minimizes government interference in the economy” as well-protecting “the rule of law, political pluralism,” intellectual property rights and worker rights, and progress toward the elimination of barriers to American trade and investment in Haiti. The bill has already attracted a bipartisan list of cosponsors, including Senators Daschle, Lieberman, and Lautenberg on the Democratic side. It’d be nice to see Senators Schumer and Clinton join the list.

Mr. Latortue and his colleagues will have quite a challenge ahead of them, given Haiti’s poverty and its history of violence and corruption. The country has been abused by tyrannical leaders on the right — Duvalier — and on the left — Aristide. But we left our lunch with the prime minister with a sense of optimism that the country has a premier and an administration committed to the building of the political and commercial institutions of a free country, so that Haiti can make its way toward the kind of growth that other developing countries have enjoyed in recent decades.