Bolivia to grow 5.3% in 2011, with an inflation index of more than 6.4%

These results stem from the upturn following the international financial crisis. External sales were buoyant, reflecting a rally in the average prices of Bolivia’s main exports and higher export volumes, especially in the case of natural gas.
The financial sector continued to grow with the domestic loan portfolio expanding by 15.7%. According to ECLAC estimates, economic activity will expand by approximately 5.3% in 2011.
Among the challenges facing the Government of Bolivia are the need to curb the rise in food prices and the inflation that these will trigger, maintain the competitiveness of the country’s main exports and boost the recovery of the mining sector.

Looming inflation
In April 2011, the government reached an agreement with the Bolivia Central Workers’ Union on an 11% rise for teachers and health workers. On 2 March 2011, it raised the public and private minimum wage by 20%. Following successive annual increments, the monthly minimum wage has gone up by 85.2% since 2006 and now stands at 815.4 bolivianos.

This policy, combined  with an important level of CCT (conditional cash transfers) that the populist government of Evo Morales takes ahead raise serious questions about the "healthy" state of the Bolivian economy.

Between nov and oct 2011 the price index in Bolivia raised in 0.32%, reaching and accumulated increase of 6.38% between January and November 2011.

According to the original plan of Bolivia's Central Bank, the inflation should not have reached more than 4%, however by November 2011 this rate is already 6.38%.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) placed Bolivia among the countries with the highest inflation rates for 2011 for the region, the other countries in the list include Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina and Venezuela with inflation rates of 7.7% to 25.8%

The problem grows bigger when we look at 2010s figures for Bolivia, which presented an inflation rate of more than 7%

Latin America produces less energy than Africa

Recently Bolivia, and most of the South American countries are suffering serious problems regarding energy.
Given this very challenging situation, I have recently got interested on the international statistics on energy production; there I found a very unpleasant surprise as a Latin American citizen: LAC countries produce less energy than Africa.

The following figures come from the IEA's (International Energy Agency) Key worlds statistics for 2011 (I am not aware of the statistics compilation for this specific sector, but the last figures in this 2011 booklet come from 2009).

As you can see, LAC countries in 1973 produced  3.5% of the World Total Primary Energy supply (Africa used to produce 3.4%), whereas in 2009 LAC countries produce 4.4% of TPEs and Africa has a 5.5% share.
This fact could be explained by the "boom" that North African countries had regarding oil supplies, however LAC countries have also important energy natural supplies such as natural gas and some oil. It would be interesting to dig into the reasons of why this happens.

Despite the reasons, the figures are clear, and I personally believe that the lack of serious investment in LAC contributes to the crippling in development of large scale energy projects in the region.

In a more localized note, is interesting to see that countries such as Brunnei or Angola have a greater energy production than Bolvia (I wonder now why my country is having so many energy supply problems)...

Is the west history?

CNN's perspective on the lack of leadership in global economy.. so is this the end of the West? will the future reside in emerging economies, BRICS and the re-borning of the South Asian tigers?