Socialist Luisa Gonzalez on Sunday conceded defeat in her race for Ecuador's presidency against banana empire heir Daniel Noboa, who at 35 becomes the violence-riddled country's youngest-ever president-elect.

Speaking to supporters in Quito, Gonzalez congratulated Noboa, who calls himself "center-left" but embraces neoliberal economic thinking and has vowed to create offshore prisons on barges to isolate the most violent inmates in a country gripped by a bloody drug gang war.