(Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias) - "Social missions, implemented by National Executive last years, have benefited 47.4% of Venezuelan homes, according to the results of the III National Survey about Family Budgets.

Part of the survey made by the Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV- Spanish abbreviation) and the National Institute of Statistics (INE- Spanish abbreviation) was aimed to determine what part of Venezuelan population has been benefited by these health, education, nutritional and human development programs.

The Director of Economic Statistics of the BCV, Luis Armando Rodríguez, explained that in the area of Government Social Programs, the III National Survey about Family Budgets took into account the following missions: Mercal (nutritional program), Barrio Adentro (health program), Robinson (educational program), Ribas (educational program), Sucre (educational program), and Vuelvan Caras (personal development program).

The results of this study show that 47.4% of the polled homes have been benefited with at least one of these missions.

The rest of the polled homes have not attended or participated to any social mission, but in low incomes families the impact of utilization of any of the missions reaches an average of 62.3%.

In homes with higher incomes the impact of utilization is between 14.6% and 22.65%, which reaffirms that missions 'are aimed to favor lower income families', Rodríguez pointed out.

He stated that the results of the poll point out that Sucre mission, aimed to give superior education, registered and impact of 22.8%. It can be deduced from this number that this option is giving answers to the problem of university access.

Regarding health and nutritional missions, the survey shows that medical Barrio Adentro and odontologist Barrio Adentro main users are children between 0-9 years old, students, and women.

Mercal markets, or Minimercal, are leading the participation in the market in most of the products they are commercializing, he said. Because in private supermarkets prices are higher, 'a bigger presence of Mercal nationwide could stimulate a competitive behavior favoring drop of prices', he explained.

The survey registered that most sold products in Mercal are rice, precooked cornmeal, sugar, pasta, powder milk, margarine, and dressed chicken.

BCV representative underscored that the most favored people with this program are those with ages between 31 and 50 years (52.6% of the population), followed by people older than 51 years old (35.2% of the total population).

When measuring by socio-economic groups, the survey shows that lower income homes as well as higher income ones buy in Mercal. The percentage of users of the first group reaches 57.4% of the population, and in the second 46.5%.

The III National Survey about Family Budgets included the visit to about 9 thousand 210 Venezuelan homes between November 2004 and November 2005, with the main goal of knowing diverse aspects related with their incomes and expenses.

Rodríguez explained that this information will have multiple applications, for example updating family shopping basket of goods and services used to calculate the retail price index at the metropolitan areas of Caracas and Maracaibo made by the BCV.

'This study will also contribute with the information required to produce from November of this year the consumer price index with a nationwide scope, in a joint work with the National Institute of Statistic', he emphasized.

Furthermore, he explained that the investigation was divided in five modules: Food Habits; Government Social Programs; Structure of the Final Consumption Expenses of Venezuelan Homes; Purchase Habits; and Socio-economic Groups in Venezuela".