Weekly Report - 14 December 2004

BOLIVIA | Growth outlook. Bolivia's economy has grown by 3.25% in the first 10 months of the year, leading the Cámara Nacional de Comercio to predict that the growth rate for the year as a whole will be close to 4%, up from 2.4% in 2003 (and an average of 2.25% for the past four years). The chamber notes that this has happened 'in spite of the negative effects of the social pressures faced by the government' and that a leading engine of growth was 'the good performance of the prices for basic products'. The driving force was the oil-and-gas sector, which expanded by 27.7%, offsetting the 8.9% decline in mining. Agriculture, despite good world prices, grew by only 1.3%. Manufacturing and transport had growth rates of just over 4%, while commerce and construction - indicators of the health of the domestic market - grew by little more than 2%. Worth noting: Bolivia's GDP must grow by more than 2% in order to achieve any per-capita growth.

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