UN report: Bolivia nearly reaches coca eradication goal

LA PAZ, Bolivia – Bolivia has nearly reached its coca crop-eradication goal and the South American country is now mainly a transshipment point for cocaine, government officials said Tuesday.

Farmers are allowed to plant 20,000 hectares of coca for medicinal and other traditional uses in this Andean, largely indigenous country. Government Minister Carlos Romero said that by the end of 2015 the number of hectares on which coca plants were being cultivated had fallen to 20,200 from 20,400 the previous year.

Romero presented the findings from the annual United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report on Tuesday.

He said Bolivia is now less of a cocaine producer than a transshipment point for the drug travelling mostly from Peru to markets in other countries, principally in Brazil.

But the report said that only 65 per cent of the coca grown in Bolivia is commercialized for traditional purposes, with the remainder being sold for illegal purposes.

It added that Bolivia is in third place with 15 per cent of the world’s coca cultivation. Peru is second with 33 per cent and Colombia first with 52 per cent.