Venezuela quits IMF and World Bank, takes over refineries

[Castro]

Where do you find leaders like this? Instead, we have to settle for Yey, Geedi and their likes. Uff.

 

Mark Tran and agencies

Tuesday May 1, 2007

 

Guardian Unlimited

 

The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, today severed ties with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

 

In doing so he distanced Caracas further from what he described as Washington-dominated institutions.

 

The populist leader, who took office pledging to pursue radical political reform and an economic "third way," said yesterday that Venezuela no longer needed institutions "dominated by US imperialism."

 

Speaking at a May Day event, Mr Chavez said: "We don't need to be going up to Washington... We are going to get out. I want to formalise our exit from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund."

 

Article continues

Venezuela has been loosening its ties to the IMF and the World Bank since Mr Chavez took office in 1999. Venezuela recently repaid its debts to the World Bank five years ahead of schedule. In doing so it savied $8m (£3.99m) and cleared all its debts to the IMF shortly after Mr Chavez was elected.

 

The IMF closed its offices in Venezuela late last year. Mr Chavez intends to set up a new lender run by Latin American countries called the Bank of the South. He has pledged to support it with Venezuela's booming oil revenues.

 

Venezuela has cut its dependence on the multilateral lending institutions on the back of its oil resources - the world's largest outside the Middle East. The petroleum sector dominates the economy, accounting for 50% of central government revenue and 70% of exports.

 

The Venezuelan economy has experienced 10 consecutive quarters of sustained high growth. This is due in large part to high public spending and private consumption, fuelled by high oil prices and historically low interest rates.

 

Mr Chavez is nationalising huge swathes of the economy this year and was today scheduled to lead a rally to mark the takeover of operations belonging to some of the world's largest companies.

 

US companies ConocoPhillips, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil and France's Total have agreed to obey a decree to transfer operational control to Venezuela.

 

Mr Chavez said the takeover marked the end of an era of Washington-dictated policies and returned Venezuelan resources under the state's control.

 

"The wheel has turned full circle," he said.

Guardian

[Castro]

Venezuela to take over refineries

 

 

Venezuela is to take control of the massive Orinoco Belt oil projects as part of President Hugo Chavez's nationalisation drive.

 

Many of the world's biggest oil companies have agreed to transfer operational control to the government.

 

The May Day takeover comes one year after Bolivian President Evo Morales seized his country's gas fields.

 

Mr Chavez has also said he wants to pull Venezuela out of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

 

The president said he had ordered Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas to begin formal proceedings to withdraw from the two international bodies.

 

President Chavez has spoken of his ambition to set up what he calls a Bank of the South, backed by Venezuelan oil revenues, which would finance projects in South America.

 

Compensation not guaranteed

 

The four projects to be taken over in the Orinoco Belt can refine about 600,000 barrels of crude oil a day.

 

Mr Chavez said he would take control of at least 60% of the projects, which were previously owned by ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, BP, Statoil and Total.

 

Negotiations are continuing about ongoing shareholdings and the possibility of compensation for the refineries.

 

Venezuela has only considered agreements based on the book value of the projects rather than their much larger current net worth.

 

Oil minister Rafael Ramirez has said that there may not be compensation at all in some cases.

 

More surprises

 

There will be more surprises from Bolivian President Evo Morales in his May Day address, one year after he shocked international investors by seizing control of the energy industry.

 

"It's going to be series of surprise measures, and if we were to announce them the day before it'd no longer be a surprise," Interior Minister Alfredo Rada said.

 

Local media reports have suggested that the measures could involve nationalising the mining industry.

 

The government had hoped to finish nationalising the telecoms industry by May Day, but talks with Telecom Italia - which owns half of the biggest telecoms company - are currently stalled.

 

Telecom Italia said last week that it was considering seeking international arbitration over the sale of Entel after Bolivia issued two decrees aimed at renationalising the company.

BBC

[Ibtisam]

Wow go Hugo Chavez go

[Paragon]

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL Oh, how delighting! . This is the best news from Latin America so far. Quit the damned American agencies of IMF and World Bank. Time for more countries in the region to follow suit.

[XOG-ogaal]

<<<<<<<<<< American citizen paragon i'm not planing to back to somalia anytime soon since I'm Hobyo so saaxiibayaal naga joojiya waxa aad nagu haysaa adinka maa bixinaaya walfare kayga hadii dadkaniy oo dhani ka baxaa IMF and World Bank

[XOG-ogaal]

sowie for the typo .....from Hobyo

[Ms DD]

Not sure about nationalising power utilities and the other big firms. The government control of the economy and the way the programs are being performed leaves little or no incentive to business to operate in the country.

But I congratulate Chaves for this move. A revolutionary leader, who could stand against the big capitalist interest and US without fear. The world needs more like him. But lets not go overboard. Chavez presidency was supposed to last 5 years. That would have been three years ago. He is not perfect however, he has ample reason to suspect the USA of having unfriendly designs towards his country's sovereignty. Venezuela is oil-rich, a resource of obvious importance to the American economy. President Chavez has consistently refused to acquiesce to American wishes on a number of economic and political issues. This is a behaviour that the American superpower does not easily abide.

 

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who Bush dislikes this much must be quite good.

[Lake]

I will accept christian chavez to lead Somalia over yey anyday.

[Fabregas]

This will be Somalia in the future inshallah, once we get rid of the warlords. Somalia should withdraw from the African Union, Igad and the Arab league, oh yeah and the United(usless) Nations. Somalia must also develop nuclear weapons.......

[Lake]

Originally posted by Geel_Jire12:

This will be Somalia in the future inshallah, once we get rid of the warlords. Somalia should withdraw from the African Union, Igad and the Arab league, oh yeah and the United(usless) Nations. Somalia must also develop nuclear weapons.......

LOL @ the thought of this.

 

Geel Jire for President.

[Ms DD]

^^ The international community will not 'tolerate' it.

 

Oh how I hate the international community..who are they anyway?

[XOG-ogaal]

lol@@@@@@@@@@@@Nuclear weapons whatchu gonna do take over the whole afican

[Som@li]

Waaw, Congratualtions Chaves, He is great leader.

[Ana_Juwa2]

I cannot think of anything more frighting than somali's wth nuclear capabilities!

 

But staying on point, you got to admire his defiance of the US Lead Hegemony drive. Even though his now starting to demonstrate small dictator type tendancies like Castro did, but in all fair ness that TV Station did plot against him

[Che -Guevara]

Originally posted by Dabshid:

He is great leader.

How so?

 

 

Nothing good comes out of nationalising the country's vital economic resources.