Luis Arce: “Bolivia has a lot to offer the BRICS countries”

The president highlighted that the nation has strategic advantages that allow it to establish agreements with the bloc’s partners to promote its industrialization.

The president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, highlighted this Thursday that his country has “a lot to offer” to the BRICS bloc, and for this reason it is committed to entering this important economic and geopolitical group to enter the international market with strategic raw materials and advance in its internal industrialization process.

“Bolivia has a lot to offer the BRICS countries because we are the world’s first lithium reservea highly demanded resource on the planet for changing the energy matrix,” said the president in a meeting with journalists from La Paz.

Arce added that his Government has reiterated its interest in joining the bloc, as well as join the BRICS bank, called NBD New Development Bank.

In his interest to show the benefits that joining the group would entail for Bolivia, Arce presented figures that show the relevance of the BRICS, the bloc made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and which is in the process of expansion.

In this sense, Arce highlighted that the bloc represents 32% of global GDP and brings together 42% of the entire population (compared to 30% and 9.9% concentrated in the G7 countries), while at the same time bringing together 21%. of all foreign trade, compared to 27% in the Group of Seven.

“The hegemony over world GDP is clearon the participation of world production and on an increasingly growing population (…) Really, the BRICS bloc is a quite auspicious bloc for any country,” he concluded.

More than an importer of raw materials

In his presentation he stressed that although it is out of the question that Bolivia has the largest reserve of lithium on the planet and that this is a strategic mineral, essential in the change in the energy matrix that some countries have set themselves, yours has more to offer.

“Opportunities are opening up for Bolivia to show itself to the world for what it is: great productive potentialas a major player country in various markets such as food, minerals, rare earths, gas and, of course, lithium,” he added.

Added to this was the strategic location in South America and the excellent economic performance of recent yearswhich have opened the doors to the New Development Bank and other international organizations, which have shown interest in financing development projects.

Likewise, the dignitary stressed that these investments aim to transcend the social welfare model based on the export of raw materials and move towards industrializationsince it is the only way to guarantee its sustainability in the long term.

BRICS membership application

On August 1, Bolivia announced that it had requested entry into the BRICS and that its president, Arce, had been invited to the XV Summit of Heads of State and Government of the bloc in the South African city of Johannesburg, to offer details of the economic development model of the Andean nation.

Bolivia was the third South American country, after Argentina and Venezuela, to express its interest in joining the ranks of the emerging group, which after its next expansion will bring together not only the second largest economy in the world (China), but three of the nine largest. crude oil producers, with the incorporation of Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.