Bolivian President Luis Arce Catacora, a special invited guest of President Vladimir Putin’s at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), addressed the gathering’s June 7 plenary session, following President Putin’s keynote. He also shared the podium with special guest Emmerson Mnangagwa, President of Zimbabwe. Arce had just come from two days of extensive meetings, first with Putin, and then with ministers, Russian company executives and other institutional representatives during which he signed a range of exciting agreements aimed at advancing Bolivia’s industrialization process in close cooperation with the Russian Federation and other BRICS nations.
In his presentation, the Bolivian President expressed confidence that joining the BRICS, which he hopes will happen this year, will provide his country the opportunity to continue the industrialization process begun originally in 2006 under President Evo Morales, but intensified in October of 2020 after he became President. He explained in great detail how the Productive Economic Social Communitarian Model which he helped design has begun to free Bolivia from the neocolonial model in which it was trapped for decades, if not centuries. It focused on lifting people out of poverty and inequality by industrializing natural resources, promoting import substitution and prioritizing social policies to attend to the welfare of the Bolivian people.
