Report: Japan to offer lithium assistance to Bolivia

[Judi Lynn]

Report: Japan to offer lithium assistance to Bolivia

Japan is poised to offer technical assistance to Bolivia as it bids to develop its lithium resources and ensure a stable supply of the metal.

According to reports in the Nikkei, supplies of lithium are expected to become increasingly scarce in Japan from around 2015 as more people start to drive electric cars powered by lithium-ion batteries.

At the moment Bolivia has the world’s largest lithium reserves and the Japanese government is hoping to work with its Bolivian counterparts at a pilot plant in the south west of the country.

Officials from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry are expected to visit Bolivia early this week to make the aid proposal and are it is suggested they will offer financial assistance and the dispatch of technical experts.

http://www.thegreencarwebsite.co.uk/blog/index.php/2010/09/14/report-japan-to-offer-lithium-assistance-to-bolivia/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheGreenCarWebsite+%28The+Green+Car+Website%29

[bherrera]

1. Establishing an operating base for Japanese Multinationals

This is a move to establish an operating base for Japanese Multinationals. The Bolivians are not doing this very smart, any studies or technology development should be provided by entities which are not interested in investing. This should be technical advisors or experts from engineering firms, which the Bolivians can pay and therefore become the masters of their own fate. With the understanding provided by these hired experts, they can create the conditions for foreign investment which do not give a special advantage to companies from this or that nation. The multinationals can be forced to compete in the market, and thus their profits are kept under control. But this approach is apparently too sophisticated for the poor Bolivians.

[Name removed]

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[Judi Lynn]

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[Judi Lynn]

4. Bolivia's Surprising Anti-Drug Success

Bolivia's Surprising Anti-Drug Success
By Jean Friedman-Rudovsky / La Paz Tuesday, Aug. 05, 2008

Evo Morales spent most of his adult life growing coca in central Bolivia, and resisting U.S.-backed efforts to eradicate the traditional crop that also produces the base ingredient for cocaine. So, when he became president of the Andean nation in 2006, many feared he would abandon the war on drugs and allow coca to proliferate, turning Bolivia into a de-facto narco-state. But after two years in office, Morales has proven to be a skilled switch- hitter: Coca cultivation is under control and drug trafficking interdiction is up. The U.S. acknowledges the achievements, even as it remains skeptical of Morales' policies on the industrialization of non-narcotic coca products. Still, Morales has managed to meet at least some of the goals of the U.S. on his own terms, without turning into an enemy of his own people.

"We have been doing very well," says Colonel Stanley Tintaya, National Director of the Coca Control Unit of Bolivia's Anti- Narcotics Special Forces (FELCN), whose group is responsible for intercepting large amounts of coca headed to cocaine labs. "Our numbers are up 30% from last year."

That's not the only good news. In the last six months alone, the FELCN cut off 11 tons of what is referred to in Spanish as "pasta base" (pre-powder paste made from the leaves) before it could get Brazil or Colombia to be turned into cocaine. That's more than what had been confiscated in all of 2005, the year before Morales came into office. And since Morales' became Bolivia's first indigenous (and coca-growing) president, the FELCN reports having destroyed 2,886 pasta base labs and jailing over 2,000 people involved in illegal coca activity.

More:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1829782,00.html

[Judi Lynn]

5. Bolivia's Economic Success

Bolivia's Economic Success
By regaining public ownership of natural resources and focusing on social programs, the Morales administration has achieved record growth despite the recession.
by Sara Kozameh
posted Dec 16, 2009

Bolivia, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, recently re-elected indigenous President Evo Morales for another four-year term in a landslide vote. According to a new study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a Washington D.C.-based think tank, Morales’ sometimes controversial policies—such as returning privatized resources to public control—have helped Bolivia thrive during the recent economic crisis. Bolivia has the highest projected growth in the Southern hemisphere for 2009.

The report, “Bolivia: the Economy During the Morales Administration” highlights Bolivia's economic growth—with rates averaging 5.2% annually during the last four years, growth has been faster than at any other time during the last 30 years. The last two years of growth are even more remarkable given the global economic context. Remittances from abroad have fallen as a result of the economic crisis, and in 2008, the United States suspended Bolivia from the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA), which had provided preferential treatment for some of Bolivia’s exports to the U.S.

According to the report, an essential condition of Bolivia's successful macroeconomic policies has been the increase in the government's collection of hydrocarbon revenues. Morales reversed an earlier administration’s privatization of the sector, ensuring that natural gas exports benefit the Bolivian people instead of foreign corporations.

Government revenues from hydrocarbons increased from 5.6 percent of GDP in 2004 to a peak of 25.7 percent at the end of 2008. Bolivia dramatically increased its foreign reserves, from under $2 billion in 2005 to over $8 billion in 2008, providing a cushion against economic shocks like the current global downturn. This increase in revenue and reserves allowed Bolivia to implement expansionary macroeconomic policies that kept the Bolivian economy growing through the world recession.

It also helped fund one of the most important policies taken up by the Morales administration: a significant increase in public spending. The Morales administration has ramped up public support for education, health care, loans to small businesses, infrastructure, and public pensions to reduce extreme poverty among the elderly. It is also making conditional cash transfers available to poor families, enabling them to keep their children in school and providing health care for pregnant women and children up to the age of two.

More:
http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/bolivias-economic-success

[bherrera]

8. Article is a little misleading and incomplete

It quotes statistics from 2004 to 2008, but everybody knows the world's economy grew very well during this period, and countries providing raw materials like Bolivia did very well. It is not surprising to see the sale of a commodity such as natural gas increased in its share of the gross national product during a period when hydrocarbon prices went to very high levels, reaching a peak about two times what they are today, and five times what they were in 2004. The article makes more sense if the statistics include 2009, because this is the first year after the economic crisis.

But I do realize Bolivia is performing well. This of course is something they need to manage, and they should move from a raw provider of commodities to a more developed and sustainable society. For example, they should consider the use of their natural gas to power vehicles. This is green, and it allows them to use their own product in a more sophisticated method.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Bolivia: The Economy During the Morales Administration

Bolivia: The Economy During the Morales Administration
December 2009, Mark Weisbrot, Rebecca Ray and Jake Johnston

This paper examines the Bolivian economy since President Evo Morales took office in 2006. It finds that Bolivia’s economic growth in the last four years has been higher than at any time in the last 30 years, averaging 4.9 percent annually since the current administration took office in 2006. Projected GDP growth for 2009 is the highest in the hemisphere and follows its peak growth rate in 2008.

The paper looks at how Bolivia’s economy has been able to progress despite a number of significant shocks, including falling remittances, declining foreign investment, the United States’ revocation of trade preferences, serious bouts of political instability as a result of separatist political opposition movements, and recent declines in export prices and markets, along with other impacts of the global recession.

Key to the Bolivian economy’s relative success has been expansionary fiscal policy and control over national resources, especially the hydrocarbons sector – a relatively recent development.

In the last three years the government has begun several programs targeted at the poorest Bolivians. These include payments to poor families to increase school enrollment; an expansion of public pensions to relive extreme poverty among the elderly; and most recently, payments for uninsured mothers to expand prenatal and post-natal care, to reduce infant and child mortality. Although the last two years of new programs will probably show some improvement when data is available, Bolivia still has some of the highest extreme poverty rates and infant and child mortality rates in the hemisphere.

More:
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/bolivian-economy-during-morales-administration/

[Wilms]

7. kick n/t