BOLIVIAN INDUSTRY
Newsletter Date Volume 1, Issue 1
BOLIVIAN MINING AND INDUSTRY
Special points of interest:
� The top trading partners are the United States, Europe and the surrounding South American countries.
� Bolivia is a part of the Southern Cone Common Market which is a free trade group.
� The biggest produced mining product was tin.
� Now the country focuses on oil and natural gas rather than mining.
� They produce gold, silver, lead and tin.
Bolivia was a very big mineral mining country producing gold, lead, silver, and most importantly tin. Tin was the biggest export for Bolivia in the 1980’ s. All the other manufactured goods were on a smaller scale as this was the biggest means of export for the country. They had other goods such as cement, tobacco, leather, chemicals, and explosives. Bolivia traded to bigger countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany. They also exported to the surrounding South American countries that surrounded them. The economy however took a turn in the 1990’ s when the world prices for minerals dropped off. Bolivia’ s economy then had to change and they began drilling for natural gas and petroleum. So in the 1990’ s these resources replaced the minerals that they relied on as the backbone of the economy was now just a vital limb. In 2000 Bolivia had exported 1.2 billion and imported 1.8 billion dollars in domestic product. Bolivia is actually a part of a trade organization in South America that is designed to lower tariffs, taxes on exports and imports, so everyone can make more money. This organization is called the Southern Cone Common Market, and the countries that are a part of it are Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.