Bolivia: Economy

The World Factbook 1993: Bolivia Economy

Overview: With its long history of semifeudalistic social controls, dependence on volatile prices for its mineral exports, and bouts of hyperinflation, Bolivia has remained one of the poorest and least developed Latin American countries. Since August 1989, President PAZ Zamora, despite his Marxist origins, has maintained a moderate policy of repressing domestic terrorism, containing inflation, and achieving annual GDP growth of 3 to 4%. For many farmers, who constitute half of the country's work force, the main cash crop is coca, which is sold for cocaine processing.

National product: GDP - exchange rate conversion - $4.9 billion (1992)

National product real growth rate: 3.8% (1992)

National product per capita: $670 (1992)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 10.5% (December 1992)

Unemployment rate: 5% (1992)

Budget: revenues $1.5 billion; expenditures $1.57 billion, including capital expenditures of $627 million (1993 est.)

Exports: $609 million (f.o.b., 1992) commodities: metals 46%, hydrocarbons 21%, other 33% (coffee, soybeans, sugar, cotton, timber) partners: US 15%, Argentina Imports: 1.185 billion (c.i.f., 1992) commodities: food, petroleum, consumer goods, capital goods partners: US 22%

External debt: $3.7 billion (December 1992)

Industrial production: growth rate 7% (1992); accounts for almost 32% of GDP

Electricity: 865,000 kW capacity; 1,834 million kWh produced, 250 kWh per capita (1992)

Industries: mining, smelting, petroleum, food and beverage, tobacco, handicrafts, clothing; illicit drug industry reportedly produces 15% of its revenues

Agriculture: accounts for about 21% of GDP (including forestry and fisheries); principal commodities - coffee, coca, cotton, corn, sugarcane, rice, potatoes, timber; self-sufficient in food

Illicit drugs: world's second-largest producer of coca (after Peru) with an estimated 47,900 hectares under cultivation; voluntary and forced eradication program unable to prevent production from rising to 82,000 metric tons in 1992 from 74,700 tons in 1989; government considers all but 12,000 hectares illicit; intermediate coca products and cocaine exported to or through Colombia and Brazil to the US and other international drug markets

Economic aid: US commitments, including Ex-Im (FY70-89), $990 million; Western (non-US) countries, ODA and OOF bilateral commitments (1970-89), $2,025 million; Communist countries (1970-89), $340 million

Currency: 1 boliviano ($B)=100 centavos

Exchange rates: bolivianos ($B) per US$1 - 3.9437 (August 1992), 3.85 (1992), 3.5806 (1991), 3.1727 (1990), 2.6917 (1989), 2.3502 (1988), 2.0549 (1987)

Fiscal year: calendar year