has
Bolivia is the second country whose income per capita is weakest
of the Latin America. Agriculture employs about half of the
working population, but the productivity is very low. The
principal marketed cultures are soya, sugar and the coffee.
Wood is an important source of income in currencies just as
the meat and the transformation of skin of bovines of the
industry of the cattle. It there also an important illegal
trade of Coke, the plant which produces the cocaine, which
makes it possible to the peasants to have a better situation
although the Government cooperates actively with the United
States to launch a campaign intended to remove the plantations.
Bolivia has large mineral reserves, especially of tin, of
which it is the principal world producer, and also of natural
gas, oil, lead, antimony, tungsten, gold and money. Oil and
the gas are enough largely with the energy needs for the country
and export. The foreign trade, which is based on the raw materials,
is reflected on the vulnerability of the Bolivian economy
which depends on the world fluctuation of the prices. But
the discovery of new layers, mainly of gas and oil, and new
forms of distribution (as the gas pipeline with Brazil inaugurated
in 1997) are a hope for the improvement of the economy. Bolivia
is member of the following organizations:
- Latin-American Association of Integration (ALADI)
- American Organization of Economy (OAS)
- Mercosur
- Comunidad Andina
- American Economic System (SELA),
- Amazonique Pact and Paises Miembros of Cuenca del Plata.
In 1980,
inflation, the wild fluctuation of the exchange and the aggravation
of the external debt, inserted to it quasi totality of the
Bolivian economy, but it went back on level little by little
and it is currently stabilized. The majority of the current
problems of the economy rest on the lack of investments since
years. The principal trade partners of Bolivia are its neighbors,
Brazil, Argentina and Chile, the followed United States of
Japan and the European Convention country mainly Spain.
