This story was produced by our colleagues at the BBC.

Entrepreneur and businesswoman Alessandra Guglielmi’s team is busy preparing lunch bags full of food to go out to customers. “We have healthy catering for people who have health conditions who want to lose weight,” she said. 

The company — called The Clean Spot — has premises in La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz.

Upstairs in her office — away from her industrial kitchen, where it’s quieter — Alessandra explained that the dollar crisis is making it hard to run her business.

“Food is crazy, imported food, imported raw materials have gone up like three times, so we can’t really maintain our costs,” she said. “Sometimes we make Asian food and like nori or cream cheese, cream cheese is crazy.”

Bolivia is suffering an economic and political crisis. Declining natural gas production has crippled the country’s ability to earn dollars. Import costs have surged as a result, sending inflation soaring to around 15%. 

Another huge issue Alessandra and other business owners are facing is limits on their credit cards. Bolivian banks are restricting credit card usage, particularly for international transactions, because of the shortage of U.S. dollars in the country and because of concerns about capital flight.

“The problem with the credit cards is that all the banks have limits that are ridiculous so you can spend around $35 a month over the internet with online purchases,” Alessandra said. “$35 is nothing for a business. So even if you put all your cards together you can’t do anything.”

“We, for example, our whole publicity is Meta, Meta ads – online publicity. We cannot pay for that now,” she added. “So that makes it impossible for us to advertise and that makes the business go down. We can’t buy anything with a credit card, that is the problem.” 

The official exchange rate for the dollar isn’t helping Bolivia’s economic woes.

“Since 2011 the government has fixed the exchange rate for dollars at 6.96 Bolivianos to one dollar. So that’s 14 years at the same rate, regardless of inflation and rising costs. The dollar has remained at a low price because government policy is to have a strong Boliviano,” said economist Gary Rodríguez, the general manager for the Bolivian Institute of Foreign Trade. 

“The problem is that since 2023 there have been fewer dollars in the country mainly due to the country’s declining natural-gas production, which means there are less dollars coming into the country,” he said. “The dollar isn’t just an exchange rate it acts as a foreign exchange reserve for the country.”

And dollars are crucial for the country’s economic stability. 

“People don’t just need dollars to import goods or to go on holiday or pay for medical treatments abroad,” Gary said. “They are investing their Bolivianos in dollars because they know the real price of the dollar is going up.”

People buy dollars on the black market in Bolivia for 14 to 15 Bolivianos per dollar – that’s around double the official price of 6.96 Bolivianos for a dollar. And there’s a thriving parallel black market for goods. 

“A product that costs 7 Bolivianos here can be sold for 15 Bolivianos abroad,” he said. “The problem is that businesses would prefer to sell items on the black market rather than here in Bolivia, which leads to food and fuel shortages. But you can understand that there is a huge temptation to sell things on the black market.  Food and fuel are all things that are being sold as contraband even though it’s illegal.”

Shortages in fuel and rising prices are affecting taxi driver Gonzalo Rios.

“Before it was easy to find fuel now, we have to wait for four hours to fill up our cars because there is less fuel around,” he said. “And the prices in petrol and food are around four times what they used to be. Life is really hard, and we are waiting for a new government which will hopefully help solve our problems.”

Bolivia’s General Elections take place in August. With spiraling food prices and mounting general unrest, the country is pinning its hopes on a new government. But economists say foreign investment and a radical overhaul of the country’s economic policies are needed to improve the situation.