In the last three years, Asia has displaced the United States as the main market for minerals exported by Bolivia, as a result of better conditions and prices.
In 2017, Asia was the destination of 61% of Bolivian mineral exports with a value exceeding US $ 2.3 billion, among which zinc, gold, silver, lead, tin and copper stand out, according to the Ministry of Mining and Metallurgy.
In the last three years, the demand for minerals by the United States registered lower figures.
In 2015, purchases by the United States reached a value of US $ 256 million, however in 2016 they amounted to US $ 81 million and in 2017, US $ 59 million.
Until 2014, an average of 40% of Bolivia’s mining exports went to the United States. In 2012, US revenues totaled US $ 1.381 billion, even above the total sales of different products to Asia that totaled US $ 1.09 billion and to Europe, which reached US $ 746 million, according to the same source.
Meanwhile, mining analyst and former mining minister, Hector Cordova, explained in an interview with Xinhua that the Bolivian mineral’s migration to the Asian market is mainly due to the better export conditions and prices offered in Asia compared to the United States and Europe.
For the expert, the recovery of mineral prices forces the mining sector to face the challenge of transcending its classic extraction pattern to a modern stage, by taking care of the social impacts and the environment generated by the activity.
According to Córdova, private mining is still the largest producer of minerals in Bolivia with 66% of the total, cooperatives with 26% and state mining with 8%.
The former minister said that this was mainly due to the fact that India, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, the Republic of Korea and China offer better payment terms for Bolivian minerals.
“Three years ago, we were selling gold to Switzerland and the United States, but since last year, destinations have changed, we have almost no exports to these countries, everything is going to the Asian market,” he added.
Minerals were the main export products of Bolivia last year and represented 47.4% of the total that amounted to US $ 7.846 billion.
Bolivian Vice Minister of Productive Mining Development of the Ministry of Mining, Mario Flores, told Xinhua that mining is the fastest growing sector in recent years in Bolivia, due to the rebound in the price and the international context.
“The mining sector has moved to second place to natural gas sales in general, due to the diversification of markets, mainly Asia, where demand grew considerably unlike the United States,” he said.
The official said that the mining sector faced the crisis of prices with the policy of increasing production and supply to new markets.
The deputy minister stressed that Bolivia has consolidated itself as the third most important mining nation in South America, after Peru and Chile, due to its high production of zinc, lead, gold, silver, copper and tin.
The consolidation of the Asian market is repeated this 2018 in the first quarter, according to the Ministry of Mining.
From January to March of this year, compared to the same period last year, the value of these exports grew by 24%, which corresponds to the increase in exports of zinc, gold, antimony, lead and tungsten.
In the first quarter of 2018, 68% of total Bolivian mineral exports were demanded by 14 countries of the Asian continent, including the Republic of Korea, India, Japan, China and the United Arab Emirates.
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