Wayzata World Factbook 1994/World Factbook - 1994 Edition - Wayzata Technology (1994).iso/pc/text/txtfiles/ecuador.bkg

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#CARD:Ecuador:Background Notes
US DEPARTMENT OF STATE BACKGROUND NOTES:  ECUADOR

June 1991
Official Name:   Republic of Ecuador

PROFILE
Geography
Area:  271,000 sq. km. (109,000 sq. mi.); about the size of Colorado.
Cities:  Capital--Quito (pop. 1.5 million).  Other cities--Guayaquil (2
million).  Terrain: jungle, mountains to coastal plain.  Climate:
varied.

People
Nationality:  Noun and adjective--Ecuadorian(s).  Population (1990):  11
million.  Annual growth rate:  2.4%.  Ethnic groups:  Indian 25%,
mestizo (mixed Indian and Spanish) 65%, Caucasian and others 7%, African
3%.  Religion:  predominantly Roman Catholic.  Languages:  Spanish
(official), Indian languages, especially Quichua.  Education:  Years
compulsory--ages 6-12.  Attendance (through 6th grade)--76% urban, 33%
rural.  Literacy--88%.  Health:  Infant mortality rate--51/1,000.  Life
expectancy--66 yrs.  Work force (3.4 million):  Agriculture--39%.
Services --42%.  Industry--11%.  Other--8%.

Government
Type:  Republic.  Constitution:  1979.  Independence:  August 10, 1809.
Branches:  Executive--president and 12 cabinet ministers.
Legislative--unicameral Congress.  Judicial--Supreme Court, provincial
courts, and ordinary civil and penal judges.  Administrative
subdivisions:  21 provinces.
Political parties:  15 legal political parties (1986) represent a wide
variety of views; none predominates.   Suffrage:  Obligatory for
literate citizens 18-65 yrs. of age; optional for other eligible voters;
active duty military personnel do not vote.
Central government budget  (1990 est.):  $1.4 billion.
Defense (1990):  $154 million.

Economy
GDP (1990): $10.9 billion.  Annual growth rate (1990):  1.5%.  Per
capita income (1989 est.): $1,043.  Inflation rate (1990): 50%.
Natural resources:  petroleum, fish, shrimp, timber, gold, limestone.
Agriculture (17% of GDP):  Products--bananas, seafood, coffee, cacao,
sugar, rice, corn, and livestock.  Industry (16% of GDP):  Types--food
processing, wood products, textiles, chemicals (pharmaceuticals).
Trade:  Exports (1990)--$2.4 billion: petroleum and petroleum products,
shrimp, bananas, coffee, cocoa.  Major markets--US, Latin American
Integration Association (ALADI), EC.  Imports (1990)--$1.7 billion:
agricultural and industrial machinery, industrial raw materials,
agricultural commodities, chemical products, transportation and
communication equipment, petroleum products.  Major suppliers--US, EC,
Japan, ALADI.
Official exchange rate (March 1991):  1,000 sucres=US$1.
Fiscal year:  calendar year.
US Assistance (FY90): Economic--$16.7 million; Military--$1.2 million;
Law enforcement--$1.4 million.

Membership in International Organizations
 UN and most of its specialized and related agencies, Organization of
American States, ALADI, Andean Pact, Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries, Latin American Energy Organization, Latin American Economic
System, Group of 77, Non-Aligned Movement, Permanent Commission of the
South Pacific (a regional organization composed of Colombia, Chile,
Ecuador, and Peru, which coordinates fishing and conservation in the
200-mile maritime jurisdiction claimed by the four countries).

PEOPLE
 Ecuador's population is ethnically mixed.  The largest ethnic groups
are Indian and mestizo (mixed Spanish and Indian).  Africans, Spanish
and other Europeans, and some Asians form smaller groups.
 Two kinds of internal migrations are occurring in Ecuador, from the
highlands to the coast and from the countryside to the cities.  Although
Ecuadorians were concentrated in the mountainous central highland region
a few decades ago, the population today is divided about equally between
that area and the coastal lowlands.  The cities now contain about 55% of
the population.  The tropical forest region to the east of the mountains
remains sparsely populated and contains only about 3% of the population.

HISTORY
 Pre-Columbian Ecuador was inhabited by linguistically and culturally
diverse peoples.  The dominant pre-Hispanic organization was the Inca
Empire, a pyramidally administered autocratic state whose absolute ruler
was believed to have descended from God.  In the 15th century, the Inca
Empire spread into what is now Ecuador from Peru.  One emperor, Huayana
Capac, established Quito as a major administrative and military outpost.
 The Spanish explorer Francisco Pizarro conquered the Incas in Peru in
1532, and other Spaniards took advantage of Inca weakness and tribal
resentment to subdue Quito and surrounding areas in 1534.
 After the War of Independence ended in 1822, Simon Bolivar joined
Ecuador with the Republic of Greater Colombia.  In 1830, Ecuador seceded
and became a separate republic.  The 19th century was a period of
political instability, and Ecuador's first 95 years as a republic were
marked by a succession of 40 presidents, dictators, and juntas.
 From 1925 to 1948, Ecuador had 22 presidents or chiefs of state.
Stability was re-established when Galo Plaza Lasso (later Secretary
General of the Organization of American States), became president after
free elections in 1948, and completed his constitutional 4-year term.
Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra (1952-56) and Camilo Ponce (1956-60) repeated
his accomplishment.
 Velasco Ibarra was re-elected in 1960 but forced out of office in 1961
after economic problems and political turbulence.  He was succeeded by
Vice President Carlos Julio Arosemena.  Less than 2 years later, the
armed forces replaced Arosemena with a four-member junta.
 Almost 3 years of military rule ended in 1966 with the appointment of
an interim civilian president, Clemente Yerovi.  Yerovi supervised the
election of a constituent assembly, which named Dr. Otto Arosemena
interim constitutional president.  When elections finally took place in
1968, Velasco was elected to a fifth term.  However, student riots and
financial problems quickly undermined his position.  In 1970, with the
support of the armed forces, Velasco suspended the constitution,
dissolved Congress, and reorganized the Supreme Court.  Despite these
measures, in early 1972, the military deposed him for a fourth time.
 After 4 years, Gen. Guillermo Rodriguez Lara was replaced by other
military officers.  The new government, led by Adm. Alfredo Poveda,
paved the way for the resumption of civilian government in 1979.
 Jaime Roldos, a protege of Guayaquil politician Assad Bucaram, was
inaugurated in 1979, beginning a new era of civilian rule.  His brief
term was marked by sharp conflicts with the Congress and with his former
mentor, Bucaram.  Roldos, a populist, brought Christian Democrat Osvaldo
Hurtado with him as vice president.  In May 1981, Roldos was killed in
an airplane crash, and Hurtado ascended to the presidency.
 During his 3-year tenure, Hurtado pursued a course of moderate change
and economic development marked, at times, by financial difficulties.
Floods caused by a persistent weather pattern known as "El Nino" did
enormous damage to the country's agriculture and roads and sparked
social unrest.
 Social Christian Leon Febres Cordero won the 1984 presidential
elections by a narrow margin.  Much of his tenure was characterized by
bitter wrangling between the executive and the other branches of
government, which were often dominated by the opposition, led by Social
Democrat Rodrigo Borja.  Febres Cordero implemented free-market economic
policies, sought to diversify Ecuador's exports, and pursued close ties
to the United States.  He also took a strong stand against drug
trafficking and terrorism.  A devastating earthquake in March 1987 set
back development plans.
 In August 1988, Rodrigo Borja became president after a landslide
victory the previous spring that gave his party (Democratic Left-ID)
almost an absolute majority in Congress.  He instituted a government
characterized by respect for human rights and economic restructuring.
The government reached an accord with the main terrorist group (AVC)
under which it was to become law abiding.
 Despite initial success, efforts to control inflation failed to bring
it below 50%, and in mid-term congressional elections (June 1990), the
ID lost more than half of its seats.  Nevertheless, Borja pledged to
continue economic restructur-ing, tight credit control, and efforts to
attract foreign investment.

GOVERNMENT
 The constitution provides for concurrent 4-year terms of office for the
president, the vice president, and the 12 congress-men (of a total of
72) who are elected as "National" (at large) legislators.  The remaining
60 legislators, representing the country's 21 provinces, serve for 2
years.  No president can be re-elected, and outgoing legislators must
sit out a term before running for Congress again.
 Each year legislators elect from among themselves a president and vice
president of Congress.  Congress begins its annual 2-month regular
session on Independence Day, August 10.  For the remainder of the year,
unless an extraordinary plenary session is called, all legislative
business is transacted by the 20 members of the Congress who constitute
its 4 permanent committees.
 Ecuador has a three-tiered court system.  Congress appoints justices of
the Supreme Court for 4-year terms.  The Supreme Court names the members
of the superior (provincial) courts, who in turn choose ordinary civil
and penal judges.  The power of judicial review rests with the Tribunal
of Constitutional Guarantees (TGC), a 15-member body representing
executive, legislative, and judicial branches, as well as the private
sector.  All TGC decisions must be submitted to the Congress, which has
ultimate authority to interpret the constitution.
 The executive branch includes 12 ministries and several cabinet-level
secretariats headed by presidential appointees.  The president also
appoints Ecuador's 20 provincial governors (the capital district of
Pichincha Province has no governor), who represent the central
government at the local level.

POLITICAL CONDITIONS
 Historically, Ecuador's political parties have been small, loose
organizations dependent more on populist, often charismatic, leaders
than on programs or ideology.  Frequent internal splits produced extreme
factionalism.
 To encourage the development of strong, stable political parties, the
constitution permits only candidates affiliated with registered
political parties to run for elective office.  To be certified, a party
must file a petition signed by a number of unaffiliated citizens equal
to at least 1.5% of the number of valid votes cast in the last national
election.  The party must then field candidates in at least 10 of the
country's provinces, including 2 of the 3 most populous.
 The 1990 congressional and local elections revealed that political
frag-mentation continues to exist: 15 parties, including 2 communist
parties, contested the election.  Eleven political parties are
represented in the Congress.  The opposition, made up of independents,
the center-right, and populist parties, remains loosely organized, with
former leaders of the Febres Cordero admin-istration among the chief
spokesmen.  The armed forces include about 50,000 troops.

ECONOMY
 Agriculture is the cornerstone of Ecuador's economy.  The coastal
region produces most of Ecuador's export crops, such as bananas and
coffee, while the highlands grow most of the country's food crops and is
beginning to export flowers and vegetables.  Although only 15% of GPD,
petroleum constitutes half of Ecuador's exports and of government
revenue.  Therefore, international oil prices have a major effect on
overall economic performance.  The small industrial sector produces
largely for a protected domestic market.
 Pursuing a policy of gradual economic reform, the Borja administration
achieved notable improvements in the economy in 1989.  It tightened
public sector spending and slowed monetary growth, reducing inflation
from 86% at the end of 1988 to  54% at the end of 1989.  It also
improved the external accounts, raising net interna-tional reserves from
negative $176 million to a positive $203 million.  However, growth in
1989 was only 0.2%.
 Progress stalled in the first half of 1990.  Public spending increased,
monetary growth remained high, and inflation stabilized at just under
50%.  In response, the government cut spending for the second half of
the year by the equivalent of 11% of the original budget.  This, coupled
with increased revenue from higher oil prices, may reduce the deficit
and moderate inflation.
 Although the government has made structural reforms, much remains to be
done, including a reduction of direct government control of the economy,
movement toward free-market interest rates, privatization of some
companies, further liberalization of trade, reform of labor laws, and
promotion of domestic and foreign private investment.
 On foreign debt, the government has regularized its relations with the
multi-lateral banks and bilateral creditors.  The IMF approved a
stand-by program for Ecuador in 1989 and renewed it in 1990, and the
World Bank and IBD have resumed lending.  In October 1989 the government
rescheduled principal and interest due to official bilateral creditors
(the Paris Club). Ecuador began discus-sions with commercial bank
creditors in August 1989 but was unable to reach agreement.  The
original round of talks stalled, but discussions were resumed in
November 1990.  Beginning in June 1989 the government began paying about
30% of interest due. At the end of 1989, total outstanding external debt
was $11.3 billion.

FOREIGN RELATIONS
 Ecuador traditionally has maintained good relations with East and West
and emphasizes multilateral approaches to international problems.
 One of Ecuador's basic foreign policy objectives is a revision of the
1942 Rio Protocol of Peace, Friendship, and Boundaries, which ended a
short war between Peru and Ecuador.  Ecuador holds that the protocol
awarded disputed territory to Peru.  Geographical features along a
78-kilometer (49 mi.) stretch of land that do not match topographical
descriptions in the protocol have, according to Ecuador, made a complete
boundary demarcation between the two countries "inexecutable."  Most
Ecuadorians would welcome a revision of the protocol (a move Peru
opposes) to gain sovereign access to the Maranon river, a main tributary
of the Amazon.
 This long-running border dispute has erupted into armed conflict along
the undemarcated section.  The most recent and serious episode occurred
in 1981.  Ecuador has requested that the four guarantors of the Rio
protocol (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and the United States) help end
formal differences over the border.  In his inaugural address, Borja
expressed interest in reaching a negotiated solution, and relations
between the two countries have warmed.
 In addition to international financial institutions, Ecuador looks
primarily to the United States, Western Europe, and Japan for assistance
in addressing social and economic development.  The govern-ment has
indicated it will seek to attract private foreign investment and has
begun to remove trade impediments.  Ecuador is not a member of GATT
(General Agree-ment on Tariffs and Trade).


US-ECUADORIAN RELATIONS
 The United States and Ecuador have close ties based on mutual interests
in maintaining democratic institutions, fighting narco-trafficking,
building trade, investment and finance, fostering Ecuador's economic
development, and participating in inter-American organizations.  The
United States assists Ecuador's economic development through its Agency
for International Development program in Ecuador and through
multilateral organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank
and the World Bank.  In addition, the US Peace Corps operates a sizable
program in Ecuador.
 Both countries are signatories of the 1947 Rio treaty, the Western
Hemi-sphere's mutual security treaty.  Ecuador shares US concern over
increasing narcotics trafficking and terrorism.  Ecuador has condemned
terrorist actions, eliminated coca production since the mid-1980s, and
developed a vigorous program of combating money laundering and narcotics
trafficking.
 Differences have arisen over the breadth of the territorial sea claimed
by a coastal state and its rights over highly migratory fish traveling
through its claimed territorial waters.  Although the United States
claims jurisdiction for the management of coastal fisheries up to 320
kilometers (200 mi.) from its coast, it excludes highly migratory
species such as tuna.  Ecuador, on the other hand, claims a
320-kilometer (200-mile-) wide territorial sea and has implemented that
claim by imposing license fees and fines on foreign fishing vessels,
with no exceptions, made for the catch of migratory species.
 In the early 1970s, Ecuador seized about 100 foreign flag boats, many
of them American, and collected fees and fines of more than $6 million.
After a reduction in such seizures for some years, several US tuna boats
were detained and seized in 1980 and 1981.  The US Magnuson Fishery
Conservation and Management Act then triggered an automatic prohibition
of US imports of tuna products from Ecuador.  The prohibition was lifted
in 1983, but the fundamental difference between Ecuadorian and US
legislation remains. Successive Ecuadorian governments have declared
their willingness to explore solutions to this problem with mutual
respect for long-standing positions and principles held on both sides.
No current conflict exists.

Principal Government Officials
President--Rodrigo BORJA Cevallos
Vice President--Luis PARODI Valverde
Foreign Minister-- Diego CORDOVEZ Zegers
Ambassador to the United States-- Jaime MONCAYO Garcia
Ambassador to the OAS--Miguel Antonio Vasco
Ambassador to the United Nations--Jose AYALA

 Ecuador maintains an embassy in the United States at 2535 15th Street,
NW, Washington, DC  20009 (tel. [phone]) and consulates in Chicago,
Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, and San
Francisco.


Principal US Officials
Ambassador--Paul C. Lambert
Deputy Chief of Mission--James F. Mack
Consul General, Guayaquil--Gwendolyn Clair

 The US Embassy in Ecuador is located at Avenida 12 de Octubre y Avenida
Patria.  Phone:  [phone].  The Consulate General is at 9 de
Octubre and Garcia Moreno, Guayaquil (tel. [phone]).


TRAVEL NOTES
 Clothing and climate:  Temperatures vary with altitude, not season.
Spring- and fall-weight clothing is useful all year in the Sierra, while
summer-weight clothes are necessary in the Costa and Oriente.  Rainwear
is necessary during the rainy season in Quito and Guayaquil (roughly
November-March).
 Immigration and customs:  A valid Ecuadorian visa is required to enter
the country; however, visas can be obtained from immigration
auth-orities upon arrival in Ecuador.  Tourist visas are valid for up to
90 days per calendar year.  Those wishing to study or work in Ecuador
should request visas from the nearest Ecuadorian Consulate or the
Ecuadorian Embassy in Washington, DC.
 Health:  Inoculations against typhoid, polio, tetanus, and hepatitis
are recommended throughout the country.  In addition, malaria
suppressant and yellow fever inoculation are reco-mmended in the
lowlands.  Travelers must take precautions against contaminated food and
water.  Tapwater is not potable in all areas.  The high altitude of the
Sierra may cause problems, especially for older people and those with
heart problems.
 Telecommunications:  Domestic telephone, telegraph and FAX services are
available between major cities in Ecuador.  Long-distance telephone
service, cables, and telex are available.  Ecuador is in the eastern
standard time zone but does not observe daylight savings.
 Transportation:  Flights are available from the United States.
Domestic airlines serve most large- and medium-sized cities in Ecuador.
Intercity railroad passenger service is limited, but inter-city buses
are fre-quent.  In the major cities, buses and taxis are plentiful and
reasonably priced.(###)


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