Bolivya gaz rezervlerinin tükenmesi enflasyonu yükseltiyor: ekonomideki kırılma küresel etkiler doğurabilir

Kısaca

Bolivya’da gaz rezervlerinin tükenmesi enflasyonu yükseltiyor; dış borç ve ihtiyaçlar baskı altında Eskiden petrol dışı ihracata dayanan ekonomi, şimdi çeşitlendirme gereğini gündeme getiriyor Piyasa hareketlerini izlemek için enerji ve emtia fiyatları ile politik gelişmeleri takip edin

Ana mesele

Dolaşan döviz sıkıntısı, yakıt kıtlığı ve ihracata bağımlı ekonomi, Bolivya’yı enflasyon baskısı altında bırakıyor

Ne değişti?

Gaz rezervlerinin tükenmesiyle büyümüş ‘ekonomik mucize’nin çöktüğü; altın ve soya satışı çözümdür iddiası belirsiz

Beni nasıl etkiler?

Enerji ve emtia maliyetleri küresel yatırım kararlarını etkileyebilir; okuyucu yakından izleyecek

Ne oldu?

Gaz rezervlerinin tükenmesi ve ithalata bağımlılığın etkisiyle enflasyon baskısı artıyor

Neden şimdi?

Küresel emtia fiyatlarındaki dalgalanma ve enerji arz güvenliği tartışmaları içinde gerçekleşti

Neden önemli?

Ekonomi dengesizliği ve sosyal/programsuzluk riskleri büyüyor; yatırım iklimi değişiyor

Kimler etkileniyor?

• Tüketiciler
• İhracat ve enerji sektörü oyuncuları
• Hükümet politika yapıcılar
• Levha üretimi ve lojistik tedarik zincirleri

Sektör ve piyasa etkisi

Enerji ve emtia piyasaları baskılanabilir; gıda maliyetleri artabilir

Riskler

• Enflasyonun uzun süre yüksek kalması
• Dış ticaret açığının büyümesi
• Siyasi ve sosyal gerilimlerin tırmanması

Takip edilmesi gerekenler

• Gaz rezervlerinin yenilenmesi veya yeni keşifler
• Altın ve soya gibi export ürünlerinin fiyatları
• Hükümetin enerji çeşitlendirme ve sübvansiyon politikaları

Haberin tamamı

La Paz, Bolivia, where a dollar shortage, fuel scarcity and mass unrest has pushed inflation to its highest in more than three decades. Photograph: Marcelo Perez del Carpio/Bloomberg/Getty Images View image in fullscreen La Paz, Bolivia, where a dollar shortage, fuel scarcity and mass unrest has pushed inflation to its highest in more than three decades. Photograph: Marcelo Perez del Carpio/Bloomberg/Getty Images Southern frontlines: Latin America and the Caribbean Bolivia ‘You can’t just bet everything on exports’: as its gas runs out, is Bolivia doomed to repeat history? A fossil gas boom that lifted millions out of poverty has collapsed and inflation is rising – but not everyone believes selling gold and soya is the answer

About this content Benjamin Swift in La Paz, Bolivia Thu 24 Sep 2026 15.00 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google O nce hailed as the “energy heart of South America”, Bolivia ’s economy was buoyed up by a fossil gas boom from 2006 to 2014. At its height, then-president Evo Morales commissioned a gleaming presidential skyscraper and installed the world’s longest urban cable car network in La Paz, the seat of government.

Flush with cash, the country grew its GDP , expanded social programmes and halved poverty rates . But then commodity prices plummeted and gas reserves started to dry up , bringing Bolivia’s “ economic miracle ” crashing down. Inflation – once the region’s lowest – has soared.

In the markets of La Paz, some imported staples have now doubled in price. “Because prices are so high, people are buying less and switching to the cheapest options,” says Felipa Huanca, who sells vegetables at the city’s bustling Rodríguez market. “Wages just aren’t keeping up.”

Bolivia’s decades-long reliance on gas is driving the crisis. A failure to discover new fields, coupled with costly subsidies and capital flight, has pushed the economy into a tailspin. Though more sustainable alternatives exist, powerful extractive lobbies continue to impede progress towards a more diversified and sustainable model.

View image in fullscreen A BP official signs an agreement with Bolivian government representatives, October 2006. Photograph: Martin Alipaz/EPA The roots of the crisis trace back to 2006, when Morales took control of Bolivia’s hydrocarbons sector and renegotiated contracts with foreign companies. The move coincided with high global fuel prices and brought an economic windfall to one of the poorest nations in the Americas.

But rather than investing in industrialisation or developing value-added exports, successive governments funnelled the profits into heavy state spending, costly fuel subsidies and maintaining a fixed currency exchange rate pegged to the US dollar.

“We failed to take advantage of a historic opportunity that brought in immense revenue,” says Luis Fernando Romero, the former head of an association of economists in southern Bolivia.

The country fell into a classic rentier state model – common for hydrocarbon-rich nations – where state revenues depend on exporting raw natural resources rather than building domestic industries.

“If you compare other petrol states like Qatar and Norway, it’s not the fact of having a large and state-owned hydrocarbon industry that determines your fate,” says Andrés Arauz, a former chief operating officer of the Central Bank of Ecuador and a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a thinktank. “It’s whether the private sector development, diversification, domestic market and poverty alleviation efforts are accompanying that.”

Experts say sustained prosperity would have required investment in core economic pillars: steel and aluminium plants, agriculture, education and healthcare. Diversifying revenue away from a single commodity was equally essential.

While some economists blame hydrocarbon nationalisation for Bolivia’s decline, Arauz notes that the failure to regulate offshore capital is often ignored. “It’s not that poor people have a little bit more money,” he says, referencing the macroeconomic stability that state hydrocarbon control brought. “The bigger factor is that rich people are taking their money out and that there is no response from the domestic elites in establishing an industrial economy.”

Bolivian elites hold an estimated $10bn (£7.4bn) offshore – an eighth of the country’s GDP – which Arauz says is an underestimate.

View image in fullscreen Inaugurated in 2018, the Casa Grande del Pueblo is a gleaming presidential high-rise and cost $34m. Photograph: Emmanuel Escobar After the 2014 commodity crash, Bolivia’s foreign reserves dwindled due to heavy fuel subsidies and its dollar peg , which wasn’t ended until earlier this year. Production fell as gas reserves went unexploited, but the government sustained subsidies and the peg, printing money to cover deficits.

The boliviano’s exchange-rate fix boosted cheap imports and consumer power but hurt local industry by fostering import reliance. Carlos Arze, a Cedla hydrocarbons expert, notes that cheap imports eroded productive sectors, requiring protection from Asian competition. Cheap dollars also grew the informal labour sector to 84% in 2024 – Latin America’s highest .

Dollar shortages and a parallel exchange rate still discourage industry. “Speculating on the exchange rate can be more profitable than legitimate business,” says Arauz.

Foreign investors remain wary, says Romero, due to Bolivia’s complexity , technological hurdles, and dollar shortages. A $1.9bn IMF loan in July mostly services debt or adds reserves, not economic diversification.

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Kaynaklar

• The Guardian - Economics