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A chaotic gold rush is helping Bolivia prop up its finances
By Sergio Mendoza, James Attwood, and Marcelo Rochabrun
Bloomberg News
Thursday, August 14, 2025
It's been a puzzling phenomenon for a while now: Bolivia is facing a crippling dollar shortage, a local currency crisis and surging inflation -- and yet it's still honoring its debts.
A visit to Cangalli, one of hundreds of mines carving gold out of the lush Amazon basin north of La Paz, helps explain it. Here, under the world’s largest rainforest, the central bank has found a way to raise billions of dollars to help pay back international bondholders with the nation's debt trading at distressed levels ahead of hotly contested general elections this coming weekend.
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A visit to Cangalli, one of hundreds of mines carving gold out of the lush Amazon basin north of La Paz, helps explain it. Here, under the world's largest rainforest, the central bank has found a way to raise billions of dollars to help pay back international bondholders with the nation's debt trading at distressed levels ahead of hotly contested general elections this coming weekend.
The tripling of international gold prices in the past decade has accelerated a shift from centuries-old panning practices -- in which artisans used shovels, picks and even their bare hands to sift through river sediment -- to industrial operations that are reshaping the riverbank and flooding homes, schools, and businesses. Some of the excavators, front loaders, and dump trucks that rumble through Cangalli's eroded landscape are owned by a Chinese company that has set up camp in the area. ...
... For the remainder of the report:
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-bolivia-central-bank-gold/
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