Zinc is the country's chief mineral, and tin, lead, silver, tungsten, copper, antimony, bismuth, and gold are also mined for export. There are oil and natural gas fields in the Camiri-Santa Cruz area. Production meets domestic needs, and some oil is exported. A natural gas pipeline extends from Santa Cruz to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and an oil pipeline extends from Sica Sica to the Chilean port of Arica. Another natural gas pipeline is being constructed.
Bolivia has few factories.
Supplies of raw materials, fuel, and trained workers and the capacity of the transportation system are inadequate for industrial development. The factories that there are, however, produce such goods as textiles, cement, dairy products, ceramics and plastics, and refined sugar. The richly carved monuments and stone walls of a ruined city at Tiahuanaco in the Titicaca Basin indicate that an advanced people lived in Bolivia perhaps 1,000 years ago. After conquering the Indians in 1538 the Spaniards governed the region, first under the viceroyalty of Peru and later under that of Buenos Aires. Led by Gen. Antonio Jos de Sucre, the Bolivians won their independence in 1825 and named the new republic after Sim n Bol var, who drafted its first constitution.