Economy & Business - April 2026

Bolivia’s President Rodrigo Paz met his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brasília on 16 March, in their first meeting since Paz took office in November last year. The focus of the meeting was on expanding bilateral cooperation in strategic areas, with the two leaders signing cooperation agreements on energy, tourism, and the fight against transnational organised crime. Their 3,400 km border is the world’s eighth-longest and the second-longest in South America, and Brazil was Bolivia’s second-largest export market after China in 2025, receiving goods worth US$1.24bn. However, Bolivian exports to Brazil are down sharply from US$4.04bn in 2013, at the height of the country’s long-gone natural gas boom.