La Paz – President Evo Morales has said that drug trade’s contribution to Bolivia’s gross of domestic product (GDP) has reduced from around 14 per cent to below 1 per cent,
“The trafficking of coca and cocaine, and drug dealing as a whole, contributed 14 per cent of GDP under previous neoliberal governments.
“The cultivation and transport of coca and derived products like cocaine have dropped to less than 1 per cent of Bolivian GDP,” he said in La Paz during the presentation of a UN report on coca crops monitoring.
Bolivia reduced the area under coca cultivation by 11 per cent in 2014, from 23,000 to 20,400 hectares, said Antonino de Leo, representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
“The drug trade does not determine the country’s economy any more under the leadership of the current government, so it is normal to hear positive feedback from UNODC,” Morales said.[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”70560″]
The illegal cultivation of the coca leaf has been reduced since the American Drug Enforcement Administration was expelled in 2010, the president said.
He also referred to the failed drug control policies in the past where economic compensation was handed out for every hectare of eradicated coca crops, or when the army and foreign powers intervened.
He said those actions led to people overstating the amount of hectares cleared in order to secure more resources.
The president said his anti-drug policy had shown that Bolivia `is better’ with the participation of its people and without foreign interference in the fight against drug trade. (Xinhua/NAN)