(Bloomberg News) - "President Hugo Chávez says that there are no plans to eliminate private property in Venezuela even as the country overhauls its eight-year-old Constitution this year in line with his vision for '21st century socialism.'

'The Bolivarian revolution, I repeat, doesn't exclude, prohibit or have any kind of plan to eliminate private property,' Chávez said, referring to his program to transform Venezuela in honor of the 19th-century South American revolutionary, Simón Bolívar.

While preserving private property, a revised Constitution would also protect 'social' and 'collective' property, like the country's large oil reserves, Chávez said, without giving further details.

Constitutional changes, to be drafted by a presidential committee and submitted for public approval in a national referendum this year, are the first of 'five engines' of change Chávez has outlined for Venezuela since beginning his second, six-year term in office on Jan. 10 (...)".