ボリビア共和国, Republic of Bolivia

Jim Rogersさんによると、ボリビアが今後有望らしい。また、数年前に起きた東チモール問題の本質についても触れている。
ボリビアは南米大陸の内陸部にあり、海には面していない。ブラジル、ペルー、チリ、アルゼンチン、そしてパラグアイの5カ国で囲まれている。そういえば、別の階に住むLLMの友達がパラグアイ出身のLawyerだったが、今年の5月に卒業して帰国してしまったのか最近会わなくなった。

Yahoo!Japan Travel: ボリビア共和国の国別情報 南米大陸のほぼ中央、アンデス山脈の真ん中に、海を持たない国がある。その昔、向かうところ敵なしだった英国の無敵艦隊もこの国には通じず、怒った英国女王は、自国の地図からボリビアを消してしまった。ボリビアにはそんなエピソードが残っている。国土の１/３近くをアンデス山脈が占め、6000m級の高峰が14座もある。“高原の国”として知られ、国内の主要都市の半分近くが標高2000ｍから4000ｍに位置している。南米のなかでもとくにインディヘナの多い国。したがって、ボリビアでは民族衣装に身を包んだインディヘナの人々も多く見かけ、南米らしさを象徴する国となっている。その南米らしさこそ、私たち旅人を魅了する要素でもあるのだ。しかし、単に観光地の数でみると、ほかの南米諸国ほどはない。だが、ラ・パスのカーニバルやオルーロのディアブラーダ(悪魔の踊り)など地方、町ごとにあるフォークロア(伝統行事）そのものが、この国の見どころであり、長く滞在すればするほど、魅力にあふれた国だと感じるだろう。どこまでも続くアルティプラーノ(高原地帯)、赤茶けた谷間に咲き乱れるように建つ高層ビル、また一方では南国ムードの漂うエリア。ここボリビアでは、多様な大自然とインディヘナと西洋の特異な折衷文化に触れることができる。そして何よりも、空の青さを感じる国である。

Interview Jim Rogers, Door: Frank Wiering en George Brugmans dd. 13 maart 2002:

Jim Rogers: Now you asked where to put your money. You mean countries, you mean industries?

Interviewer: I mean countries, regions.

Jim Rogers: Okay. If there were six of me I would move to China right now because China is going to be the country of the 21st century. The 19th century was the century of the UK, the 20th century was the century of the US, the 21st century is going to be the century of China, you should make sure your children and grandchildren learn Chinese, if you are not going to move to China, at least make sure they learn Chinese because that will be the most important language in their lifetime. If there are more of you, you might consider moving to Angola, Angola soon will be the richest country in Africa. The stupid war may become to an end, the devastating, unbelievable stupid war looks like it is coming to an end. Angola is going to be extraordinary exciting in the next 50 years. Tanzania, one of me would go to Tanzania, one of me would go to Bolivia, East-Timor. There is a huge war in East-Timor recently, that war was not about Christianity versus Islam by the way, it was not about dictators!
hip versus democracy, it was not about self determination versus aggression. If you looked at the TV you would think it was. It was about natural gas. They have discovered unbelievable amounts of natural gas in the waters around East-Timor, well everybody wants that natural gas, there are only a few hundred thousand East-Timorese, so it doesnft take too much to figure out we could all be very, very rich, whoever we are. But East-Timor is a place that if you got the time, go there, because it is about to be a new Kuwait, a small country with huge natural resources, Bolivia.

Interviewer: Why Bolivia?

Jim Rogers: Bolivia, everybody thinks it is a drug haven, it has been, especially if you listen to the American State Department, one word of advise, do not get your investment advise from the US government or any government for that matter, including the Dutch government, but especially not from the US State Department, you will go broke in no time. Yes, there have been drugs in Bolivia for hundreds of years by the way. But in Bolivia they have now discovered huge amounts of natural gas, again natural gas, there is lots of it. The last five years they have found tremendous amounts of natural gas which is going to change the whole country. Plus the whole infrastructure, they are building a new highway system, that is going to open western Brazil, western Brazil and eastern Bolivia, that whole geographic area to the Pacific. This can be and is and will be more a huge agricultural area, but the problem has been that it was so isolated that you couldnft get the stuff out. No matter !
how many soy beans you raised, you couldnft get them out, you couldnft sell them, it wouldnft do you any good, but now they are building the infrastructure. I rode on the road, itfs a brand new road, itfs a fantastic road leading to the Pacific Ocean. And now you can get the stuff from western Brazil, eastern Bolivia. itfs like the railroad, when the railroad went west from America it opened up the whole country, well the same thing is happening in that geographic area, huge natural resources, huge agricultural potential, huge natural gas, lots of spectacular opportunities.