Tale of Two Cities: New York and La Paz on Earth Day, 2010

On Earth Day, 22 April 2010, there was much going on in La Paz and New York. The former had some 15,000 visitors to hear talks on melting glaciers and capitalism, whilst in the latter great crowds tuned in to hear about capitalism and, er, capitalism. POTUS turned up, to the chagrin of the Big Apple's biggest billionaire, who was not informed ahead of time about the visit. The billionaire happens also to be the mayor, so it is protocol to do so, but when you are a novice politician, protocol is often lacking; just look at the pictures of POTUS at a seder without a kippa, or yarmulke as it is better known in New York. The novice, who also happens to be a millionaire, was in NY to address Wall Street, which was worried that he might do something to regulate them, especially after the latest scandal with bankers putting together idiotic deals and then betting against them; the buyers lost a billion, the bankers made a billion. Many millionaires are now ex-millionaires. But the billionaire was not going to let the loss of a mere billion serve as an argument for regulation. His argument ran something along the lines that if you regulate them, NY might lose out - kind of like asking the government not to enforce the law on the mob, as it makes money and without mob money NY might lose out... The Amigos de Bolivia crowd, however, had a better speaker to listen to, even if he wasn't a billionaire or even a millionaire; someone who could talk about credit upgrades, best GDP in the region status, and increased social spending, rather than stock market swindles. The speaker was Luis Alberto Arce Catacora, Minister of Economics and Public Finance. He spoke at Columbia University, flanked by the Bolivian Consul, Marco Medrano, and his aides.
Arce mentioned Bolivia's vast mineral resources - no talk on Bolivian economics would be complete without that - and said one very good thing: that Bolivia was not going to just count on these to get by, but was going to create businesses that would be sustainable for the future; he mentioned eco-tourism, paper mills and agriculture.Of the first, there was not much detailed discussion, Bolivia has always lagged behind on this, whilst Ecuador, Peru and Costa Rica are the leaders in the field. Bolivia has greater biodiversity than any of them, with 1448 species of birds and well over 1200 species of orchids. But this market will have to be tapped; there needs to be more scientific papers and publicity about what is there, with the museums and other institutions working to alongside this industry. Amigos de Bolivia members offered their help on this and we shall see. As to paper, Arce qualified what materials were used by saying that the mills were all for recycling; much room for improvement exists here if new fibres can be sourced, either grown for paper, or, in the case of hemp and banana, the fibres that are generally thrown away can be used. Hemp is the oldest paper fibre in the world, and banana is a relative of Manila hemp, used for making rope, so both are excellent choices and can grow in Bolivia.
As to agriculture, Arce noted there are two kinds of crops: those known in the West, such as maize, rice, sugar, etc., and those endemic to the Andes, such as quinoa and maca; a student added stevia to that list. Then of course there is wine (grown in 6 departamentos, mostly in Tarija), coffee, and coco. Arable land, however, is not abundant in Bolivia, it comprises only 4.5% of the country; by contrast, 56% of India is arable land. Thus agriculture needs to be both diversified and focused on those plants which would make the country competitive.

World attention is turning to Bolivia more and more, so expect to hear more about it. My guess is that the mineral resources will ultimately prove lucrative, but not without struggle, and that in the meantime, and for the future, the best bet is to develop sustainable industries such as Senor Arce mentioned.