Bolivia and Holland sign a deal for lithium battery development

Bolivia and Holland this week signed an agreement for a joint project aimed at the manufatcure of lithium batteries in Bolivia. It was signed in La Paz, between Prince Jaime De Borbon Parma, a minister of foreign affairs for Holland, and the Bolivian minister David Choquehuanca. The manager of Recursos Evaporiticos, Luis Alberto Echazu, explained the deal as being in the making, with the intention of coming up with a master plan in the future for implementing a battery production plant in Bolivia and the creation of a scientific research laboratory.
This type of deal allows Bolivia to profit not only from the mining of lithium, but from production as well. In the past Bolivia has mined a great quantity of metals but the smelting and other refning and manufacturing processes have generally been undertaken outside the country.



Dutch Prince Jaime De Borbon Parma

Bolivia's economic advances

In El Diario/La Prensa, [9 August 2013, p.15] there was an article about Evo Morales' speech on the state of the economy. A basic translation from the Spanish is that at a CAF banking development conference in Sucre, Morales told the listeners that the economic growth gets democratised and the economy comes back. With the gross internal product rate growing well at a rate of 6.5% in the first part of the year, Bolivia is ranked as the third most powerful economy for the region; Morales listed the economic expansion as due to growth in the hydrocarbon, financial services, transport, construction, electricity, public adminstration, manufacturing and agricultural sectors.
He points out that while Bolivia is third, the nations ahead of it have gotten much private investment, which is good and within their rights, but does not resolve the social problems.
"Some outfits with neither social responsibility nor conscience may grow, but do so for a few families, not for the majority", which is the opposite of what is happening in Bolivia.
Bolivia continues to grow economically.
One factor in its growth is diversity; this year, both gold and silver, which Bolivia has in good quantities (see previous post on mining on this site), have depreciated in world markets, but this has not significantly hurt Bolivia. 20 other metals are mined and there are a number of other industry sectors, some still to be developed much further, such as tourism.
Look for Bolivia to grow steadily for a couple more years and then boom afterwards.