"Evo fulfills its promises" | Report to the Minister …

From La Paz

Luis Arce Catacora is one of the two ministers who accompanied President Evo Morales for more than years in government. Between June 2017 and January of this year, he moved away from the public service to recover from a tumor. He returned to complete his task that he had started with the president when he came to power in January 2006. The manager is able to give miners training workshops because he can go towards the closing of the campaign in El Alto and melt into the crowd. . A person who knows him very well has met and said that "he was playing drums among people".

– What is the Bolivian economic miracle?

– Whenever we hear that, we say: we do not believe in miracles. Behind all this, there is a team work that achieves it. Why do they call this a miracle? I do not know if it's the Financial Times that started with the number or the Washington Post, something like that. In the past, Bolivia was one of the countries with the highest unemployment rate. In South America, we were the poorest in the region with rates exceeding 38% of extreme poverty. We had a marginalized indigenous farmer sector and a lack of income in the population. This has led to a great deal of informality, especially in less prepared sectors of society. In addition, the neoliberal economic model was applied in our country, which was in effect for twenty years and the people demanded a change. As popular wisdom said, the rich became richer and the poor more and more poor. This then triggered a movement against neoliberalism.

– And how did the story unfold later?

– A whole social movement was generated and with the nomination of MAS in 2005, the election was won with 51%. This year with Carlos Villegas, who no longer accompanies us in this world, we created the economic model. We had several challenges. First, we had to create an alternative model to the neoliberal model that promised development, employment, a series of things that have never been fulfilled. But another more important thing was to show results almost immediately. Due to the exhaustion and desperation of the people out of poverty, it was imperative to get results almost immediately, which was complicated.

– "Bolivia changes, Evo complies "is the premise.

– The characteristic of President Evo is that he fulfills everything that he promises. That's why, at the Ministry of Economy, we are shaking when the president is going to declare something because we have to comply. The nationalization of hydrocarbons was fundamental. To understand what is happening in Bolivia, you have to understand this problem. After nationalization, we begin the process of income redistribution. Bolivia had a Gini coefficient of 0.60 in 2005, which together with Brazil, with 0.61, was among the highest. But with all redistribution policies, we dropped to 0.47. In other words, if we look at which country has reduced the Gini index the least, it is Bolivia.

– What other pillars is the project based on?

– Recovering natural resources, distributing income with socio-economic measures such as the Juana Azurduy obligation against infant mortality, which consists in taking care of the child up to two years, such as the Juancito Pinto obligation, whose the goal is to reduce the dropout rate. All social policies have tended to redistribute income. And the second step we take is to diversify the economy, because an economy without diversification can not guarantee a revolutionary process. What happened to tin and gas will not be repeated. Now with the reform of the constitution, the state must have 50% plus one. We do not have to negotiate in unequal conditions with abroad. This is the case of lithium with a German company, in the case of iron in El Mutún with Chinese.

– To the detractors of the government, you have returned them by the proof of the economic achievements, what is your interpretation on this subject?

– What we have shown in recent years is that they have been wrong all their lives, even in their university life. Many neo-liberals were presidents of the Central Bank, participated in privatizations, felt the market was the absolute truth, and implemented the market economies of Washington. After twenty years, we are finding that by doing things differently, we are doing better. They have to justify themselves because in twenty years they have not been able to do things right.

– The construction of subjectivity on the state as a silly state, an oversized state that neoliberals have always installed, how did you face it?

– It was the toughest game we had, of course. They told us the dinosaurs, they told us retrograde, but time was passing and the dinosaurs were no longer so dinosaurs because we put the economy at the service of the people.

– What legal tools did you have to conduct an economic policy?

– I save, for example, the law on financial services where we told the banks: Gentlemen, you 60% of your portfolios direct me exclusively to productive credit and housing of social interest. With 40% doing what they want. We have made progress with the 2006 decree of a productive development bank, a bank that financed microcredit and small credit. With that, we have had great experiences. Our policy was expansive without inflation or controlled inflation. Why is inflation controlled? Because there is production. A country in production can control inflation. We start on the positive side, if demand increases, production increases. We generate an economic surplus to be redistributed among peoples and to create a more egalitarian society. Because we want a Bolivian society of opportunities more equal, more uniform. Bolivia had 65% of the low-income population in 2005 and 62% of the middle-income population.

–When you meet the Ministers of Economy of the different countries of the continent, how do you think your colleagues perceive the progress of Bolivia?

– They know we are better, but they ignore us, they dismiss us because it does not suit them. Well, at the last meeting of Mercosur, well, of those who could talk, with whom I could more or less do, it was with Uruguay. But Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Chile, who were also present, did not say anything, or continued to talk about the market. It is very clear, when they worry about something, the Bolivian Minister of Economy smiles.

– Are there still pressures to do business with Bolivia under the conditions of the past?

– They always exist, but each time to a lesser extent or less intensely. It is imperialism that is turning everywhere. As long as capitalism is not extinguished, we will not stop seeing that kind of thing.

– Just as an American newspaper has described President Morales' policy as a Bolivian miracle, how would you call it in your own words?

– We put the economy at the service of the people, it is simple. Listen, understand and perform what people need and want.