March 27, 2023, 1:48 PM
March 27, 2023, 1:48 PM
Marcelo Montenegro, Minister of Economy and Public Finance, when explaining the current situation of the national economy, blamed Bolivian Fiscal Oil Fields (YPFB), then, during the management of Juan Evo Morales did not make ‘aggressive’ investments in exploration to increase natural gas production.
The authority specified that, during the MAS administration there were two moments. The first stage was reinvest resources generating added value (jobs) and in the second one focused on the income redistribution.
Montenegro specified that in the first stage, good international prices and the large volumes of natural gas exports made it possible to generate, between 2006 and 2019, a oil income of 37,500 million dollars.
But after the boom, the minister of the economic portfolio remarked that there was a drop in production levels as a result of YPFB not making the investments necessary to continue maintaining the volumes of gas production.
Given the current situation, Montenegro indicated that it is paying the bill because YPFB did not make the respective investments, in time to remember that at the time the Minister of Hydrocarbons lied to Morales by indicating that ‘Bolivia was in a sea of gas‘, when that wasn’t real.
Despite this situation, Montenegro indicated that the Bolivian economic model was able to answer the challenges of a complicated environment.
highlighted the reduction of the fiscal deficit, which in 2018 was 8.1%, in 2019 it fell to 5.2%, in 2020 it went up to 12.7%, in 2021 it went down to 9.7%, in 2021 and in the 2022 administration it went down to 7.2 %.
As for the rating agency reports and a possible devaluation of the national currency, the minister remarked that the economic recipes that are applied are not linear, pIf it were, the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund would have been taken into account (IMF), who recommended noor pay the bonus, something that was not done, Montenegro specified.
Regarding the recommendations to carry out a fuel subsidy selectively, the authority pointed out that everyone has the right to give their suggestions and that in this sense, from the Ministry of Hydrocarbons, is working for optimize subsidy issuenews that will be announced, without harming the popular economy.
