New Bolivian leader ends fuel subsidies after 20 years of leftist rule

LA PAZ

Bolivia's new president has announced that the country will get rid of its fuel subsidies, ending 20 years of fixed prices under the Latin American nation's previous leftist leaders.

"With the publication of this decree, the new prices for hydrocarbons will be announced," President Rodrigo Paz, a pro-business conservative elected in October, said in a televised address while flanked by his ministers.

"Removing poorly designed subsidies from the past does not mean abandonment. It means order, justice, clear redistribution," Paz added.

The Bolivian government centralizes gasoline and diesel imports, purchasing them at international prices and reselling them at a loss.

The country has undergone its worst economic crisis in four decades as the subsidy policy drained the treasury's international dollar reserves.

Since 2023, there have been recurring fuel shortages at service stations, where lines of vehicles waited hours — and sometimes days — for gas.

Paz said diesel will be removed from the list of substances controlled by the government and put on the free market, to facilitate imports by the private sector.

He added that the subsidies would no longer be abused to "hide the looting" and prices would stabilize and "make it possible to generate additional fiscal resources."