For more than a year now Bolivia faces a sustained rise in the prices of some productsbut in the last days of the year the cost of beef, chicken and pork suffered an increase of between 26% and 76%in the main cities of the country.
Chicken had a historic increase in its price, It went from costing around 13 to 15 bolivianos to 23 or 25. “The price of chicken has risen for two weeks, on these dates it usually reaches 18 bolivianos, but never as expensive as now,” a chicken seller from a market told the news portal. Urgent.
According to the merchants, in addition to the increase in demand at this festive time of the year, suppliers justify the increase in prices to the low production of chicken in some departments and the difficulties in obtaining fuel for transportation.
Since the beginning of 2023 Bolivia suffered a drop in gas production, the country’s main export item and it has had to use international reserves to maintain subsidies for imported fuel, which is one of the largest public expenses: nearly 2 billion dollars are allocated annually for the purchase of diesel and gasoline.
In this context, the supply of dollars began to become scarce and money transfers and banking transactions in that currency were limited, which caused the emergence of a parallel currency market where the dollar is quoted at a value 70% higher.
Los The country’s macroeconomic problems have begun to be felt in the pockets of the population several months ago and the increase in prices of the family basket in Bolivia has been a growing concern that has caused demonstrations to demand solutions from the Government. In the last four years, the country has accumulated an increase of 6% in the official price index.
He President Luis Arce admitted the shortage of dollars and attributed the economic crisis to poor management of the hydrocarbon policy of the Government of Evo Morales (2006-2019)to international factors and climatological phenomena that affect agricultural production. However, the Government has minimized the economic impact on the prices of the basic basket and affirms that the increase is due to the increase and speculation of some products or intermediaries.
In a dialogue with journalists in La Paz this Monday, President Arce stated that “the world economy is being affected, There is a global inflation that is affecting the lives of all Bolivians” and said that until mid-year prices were controlled in the country but then they began “speculative attacks” and inflation began to rise.
In the last month, the Arce administration took some controversial measures to avoid price increases and guarantee the supply of products in the domestic market, such as vetoing the export of refined soybean oil for ten days and intervening in rice mills to deliver production to the Food Production Support Company (Emapa)a state entity in charge of guaranteeing the supply of food at lower prices.
“The only thing we have asked of national producers and industrialists is that first guarantee the stomach and the table of the Bolivians. If they guarantee internal supply, we have no problem with the rest of everything they produce going abroad,” said Arce during a visit to the border with Peru to supervise controls on illegal trade in products.
To provide essential food supplies, the Government also implemented border controls to prevent the flight of food to other countries, tariff reduction on some products, subsidization of products and organized neighborhood fairs by the Emapa company, among other measures.
