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Exports include crude oil and derivatives, shrimp, bananas, coffee, cut flowers, cocoa, and Panama hats. Ecuador’s principal export destinations are the United States, Peru, China, Chile, and Panama.
Imports include machines and primary industrial materials, motor vehicles, consumer goods, and food and chemical products. Imports come mainly from the United States, China, Colombia, Panama, and Brazil.
Services
The service sector accounts for about half of Ecuador’s gross domestic product, with transportation and tourism making up the bulk of the industry. Tourism has become an economic mainstay for Ecuador. Many tourists visit the Galapagos Islands (which were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1978), but improvements to tourist facilities have increased the number of visitors to the mainland as well. Notably, in the early 2000s the government expanded Quito’s airport and renovated Guayaquil’s airport, adding an international terminal. In 2000 extensive renovation of Guayaquil’s waterfront was completed—namely, its transformation into a pedestrian walkway and the addition of shops and public art. In Quito the Telefériqo (cable car) glides to the top of a 13,000-foot (4,000-metre) mountain, and Ecuador’s most-visited landmark, Mitad del Mundo (“Middle of the Earth”), a monument and museum at the Equator, has undergone many renovations. Cities such as Baños and Puyo provide entry for excursions into the Amazon rainforest and offer opportunities for outdoor adventuring.
Labour and taxation
About three-fifths of Ecuador’s labour force works in the service industry, with the majority engaged in retail and wholesale trade, as well as restaurant and hotel work. About two-fifths of Ecuadoran women are economically active, but they are less of a presence than their counterparts in other South American countries. Moreover, rather than improving the quality of life for women, their involvement in the workforce has simply meant more women performing menial labour, most often in domestic service, agriculture, family-run businesses, and the informal sector. In the early 21st century, on average, about one-tenth of Ecuadoran workers were unemployed.
Ecuadoran law provides workers (except members of the police, the military, and most public sector employees) with the right to form and join trade unions of their choice. About one-tenth of the workforce is formally organized, but the proportion of employees who maintain membership in a labour union is much higher. The National Teachers’ Union and the Union of Social Security Workers are the two largest single labour unions. Collective bargaining agreements affect about one-fourth of the organized workforce. Widespread use of subcontracted labour (whereby companies do not directly employ workers) proliferated in many industries, especially on plantations; however, legislation passed in 2006 limits the percentage of subcontracted workers a company can employ and enables these workers rights to freedom of association, to bargain collectively, and to legal protection against antiunion discrimination.
The tax system in Ecuador has been subject to frequent change. Both an income tax and a value-added tax are levied. Private firms are required to distribute a portion of profits among their employees.
Transportation and telecommunications
For much of its history, Ecuador relied on horse or mule transport on difficult trails or on canoe transport on coastal or Amazon river systems. Railroad development faced great difficulties, and the Quito-to-Guayaquil rail line (with a branch to Cuenca)—although locally important—is slow, antiquated, and subject to disruption by floods, landslides, and earthquakes. This is even more the case for the rail line from Quito to San Lorenzo on the coast via Ibarra. Transport was revolutionized by the paving of the Pan-American Highway, the main Ecuadoran roadway, which extends along the highlands from the Colombian border to Riobamba and then descends to the Peruvian border. It is supplemented by a network of all-weather roads. The main highland centres are connected by asphalt roads, with asphalt or cobblestone secondary roads to regional market towns. Many rural centres are still served only by unsurfaced roads, impassable during wet periods; roads to the east of the Andes are also relatively poor. There is some concern that highway development will lead to deforestation and have adverse effects on the survival of remote Indigenous groups. The more likely reason for slow development, however, has been cost.
Goods are brought to market through labour-intensive methods by independent truckers and by peasant women and itinerant vendors, who bring small amounts of goods to market on foot, with burros or mules, or by bus. Numerous regional bus companies provide cheap, frequent, and far-ranging rural transport.
Air transport has grown, especially for the important Quito-Guayaquil connection and for international travel. The major airline is Sociedad Ecuatoriana de Transportes Aereos (SAETA), which flies internationally. SAN-SAETA, however, flies only between major cities in Ecuador. Several other international carriers also serve Ecuador, landing at the major airports of Guayaquil and Quito. Domestic airlines serve local airports, and air service to centres such as Cuenca and Machala has been established. Other air services provide access to points in the Oriente.
Guayaquil is the country’s chief port, with facilities at Puerto Nuevo. Other modern ports include San Lorenzo, Esmeraldas, Manta, and Puerto Bolívar. Rivers, particularly in the Guayas basin, also serve as transportation arteries.
Ecuador’s telephone systems are state owned; most Ecuadorans use cellular phones. Cable television and high-speed Internet connections are available. Internet cafés have opened throughout the country.
Government and society
Constitutional framework
A president serves as the chief of state and head of government. The president and vice president are elected by popular vote and serve four-year terms. Members of the cabinet are appointed by the president. Legislative power is vested in the unicameral National Assembly; members are popularly elected to four-year terms. Constitutional conventions became a common feature of Ecuador’s political system in an effort to eliminate the instability of the period from the mid-1990s to the early 21st century, when many individuals served as president and none completed a four-year term. A new constitution—the country’s 20th since its independence in 1830—was approved by voters in a referendum held in September 2008. In December 2015 the National Assembly enacted 15 amendments to the constution, including the removal of term limits for elected office, the implementation of which was to be transitional until 2021. (Under the 2008 constitution the president and the vice president had been limited to two consecutive terms in office.)
Local government
The president appoints governors to administer each of Ecuador’s provinces. Provinces are divided into cantones (cantons); these in turn are divided into parroquias (parishes). Ecuador’s government has become increasingly decentralized. The mayors (rulers of cantons), elected by local vote, are particularly important for initiating local infrastructure projects and environmental controls.
Justice
Ecuador’s judicial system is composed of provincial courts, higher or divisional courts, and a Supreme Court. Despite attempts at reform, the Supreme Court has historically been plagued by inconsistent rulings and is viewed as being susceptible to outside influences.
Political process
Voting is required for literate Ecuadorans ages 18 to 64. If a political party fails to garner a minimum of 5 percent of the votes in two elections, it is eliminated from the electoral registry. Citizens not affiliated with a political party may also run for office. After Ecuador’s return to democracy in 1978, closed lists (where voters are only allowed to choose a party, not a candidate) and direct ballots were used. In 1998 a constitutional amendment changed the system of elections to open lists (allowing voters to choose their preferred candidates as well as preferred party) to promote equal representation.
Women were granted suffrage in 1929. By the end of the 20th century, women’s representation in politics increased by nearly 20 percent. Moreover, an amendment introduced in 2000 requires that political parties’ candidate lists for Congress and local and provincial positions must include at least 30 percent women and that in each subsequent election an additional 5 percent of the candidates be women until equality is attained. The law applies to all Ecuadoran women; however, Indigenous and Black women candidates for Congress have been scant (largely because many Black and Indigenous women are illiterate and stay confined to their communities).
An array of Ecuadoran political parties draws strength from various regions, classes, ethnic groups, and professions. Moderate democratic parties have shown strength among teachers, government workers, and professionals in the more prosperous parts of the Sierra. The communist parties have shown strength in Quito and Loja, as well as in the poorer northern and central highlands. Centrist coastal political parties are often populist in character, associated with charismatic personalities and grassroots political organizations. Parties that stress the rights of Indigenous peoples and their participation in government have also grown in strength among the Indigenous population. Because no party is strong throughout the country, alliances must be established to attain victory at the national level.
Security
Ecuador has an army, navy (including naval infantry, naval aviation, and coast guard), and air force. There is a 12-month conscription for male citizens age 20. The National Police are under the authority of the Ministry of Government. Some municipalities, such as Quito and Guayaquil, have their own metropolitan police forces.
Health and welfare
All public and private employees are affiliated with the National Social Security Institute. In return for a monthly deduction from employees’ salaries, the agency provides such services as medical and hospital insurance coverage, state-run clinics and dispensaries, low-interest loans for surgery and mortgages, retirement pensions for civil and state employees, and pensions for widows and child dependents.
The Social Welfare Program, a division of the Ministry of Public Health, maintains public hospitals in all the provincial capitals and in the principal cantons. Little of the national budget is devoted to public health programs, however, and health conditions are generally poor. A number of endemic diseases persist, including typhoid fever, malaria, amebic dysentery, and tuberculosis.
Housing
In the Sierra, traditional housing of wattle and daub, thatch, or rammed earthen walls, with thatched roofs, has been giving way to Spanish tile or corrugated metal roofs and cement block or brick walls. On the coast, farmers live in houses on stilts, walled with flattened bamboo and roofed with thatch. Notwithstanding the subdivision of haciendas into smaller farms since the 1960s, some farmers still occupy old rural hacienda buildings, with white walls and Spanish tile roofs; other old-style hacienda structures have been abandoned or converted into hotels. In the Oriente, traditional housing is constructed from palm trees and often consists of open-sided roofed platforms.
