- Official languages: Spanish and 36 indigenous languages.
- Geographical location: it is a landlocked country located in western-central South America. Bolivia is bordered by Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile and Peru.
- Administrative divisions: Bolivia has nine departments — Pando, La Paz, Beni, Oruro, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, Potosí, Chuquisaca, Tarija.
- Capital: Sucre.
- Governance: the executive branch is headed by a president and vice president, and consists of a variable number (currently, 20) of government ministries. The traditionally strong executive branch tends to overshadow the Congress, whose role is generally limited to debating and approving legislation initiated by the executive. The judiciary consists of the Supreme Court and departmental and lower courts. The National Congress has two chambers. The Cámara de Diputados (Chamber of Deputies) has 130 members elected to five-year terms, seventy from single-member districts (circunscripciones), sixty by proportional representation, and seven by the minority indigenous peoples of seven departments. The Cámara de Senadores (Chamber of Senators) has 36 members (four per department).
- Population: 11,67 million.
- Currency: Boliviano.
- GDP: $36,69 billion (2020).
- Time zone: GMT/UTC -4.
- Telephone code: +591.
- Barcode: 777.
Socio-economic situation of Bolivia
Despite the stagnation of the world economy and the problems of most countries in the region, Bolivia has managed to maintain overall positive dynamics. The key to success was the domestic market. Once again, the volume of domestic demand contributed to the growth of the national economy. This growth is primarily due to the growth of household incomes, which, in turn, leads to an increase in purchasing power. The improvement of working conditions, accompanied by an increase in wages, coupled with state support for low-income families are at the heart of the policy that made such results possible.
Secondly, the growth of domestic demand is stimulated from year to year by public investments in the economy, thus demonstrating the internal power of the state, which actively participates in the development of its own economic model, distributing and redistributing available resources.
Import structure:
- industrial products (29.5%);
- capital (23.8%);
- fuel (13.3%);
- vehicles and spare parts for them (14.8%);
- food products (6.8%);
- consumer goods (11.7%);
- other products (0.2%).
The main supplier countries of Bolivia were:
- China (supplied goods worth 2.1 billion US dollars or 20.7% of total Bolivian imports);
- Brazil -1.6 billion US dollars (6.1%);
- Argentina — 1.2 billion US dollars (11.6%);
- Peru — 0.7 billion US dollars (6.7%);
- USA — 0.6 billion US dollars (6.3%).
Export structure:
- industrial products (54.2%);
- FUEL and lubricants (34.7%);
- food products (8.5%).
The main directions of Bolivian supplies were:
- Brazil (purchased goods worth 1.7 billion US dollars or 19.0% of the total volume of Bolivian exports);
- Argentina — 1.4 billion US dollars (15.8%);
- India — 0.72 billion US dollars (8.0%);
- Japan — 0.67 billion US dollars (7.4%);
- South Korea — 0.58 billion US dollars (6.4%);
- USA — 0.5 billion US dollars (5.5%).
An important position in the structure of Bolivian exports are hydrocarbons, primarily gas.
Bolivia's main trading partners
The most purchased commodity items by Bolivia are:
- diesel fuel (purchased for 637.2 million US dollars);
- iron and non-alloy steel (192.9 million US dollars);
- motor vehicles with an engine capacity of 1.5 - 2.0 cm3 (157.5 million US dollars);
- gasoline (US$136.8 million);
- trucks with a load capacity of over 4.5 tons (135.7 million US dollars);
- machines and mechanisms (HS 8479) (117.0 million US dollars);
- mechanical vehicles with an engine capacity of 1.0 - 2 thousand cm3 (117.5 million US dollars);
- wheat flour (100.6 million US dollars);
- trolleybuses (88.9 million US dollars);
- funiculars (87.3 million US dollars).
This article has been prepared on the basis of information provided by the National Centre for Marketing and Price Study of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Embassy of the Republic of Belarus in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and taken from public sources. The information presented herein is for informative purposes only. In this regard, it may be useful for the companies, which have been working in Bolivia for a long time, as well as for those, which are going to enter this market. Any questions, feedbacks and comments concerning this article are welcome. All of them will be fully considered and taken into account, if possible. If you have any information that may be interesting and useful for the visitors of this page, please write to us.
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