June 30, 2007
Venezuelan Finance Minister: Venezuela paid first quarter debt to the World Bank

(Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias) - "The current economic scheme implemented in Venezuela allows estimating an unemployment rate to 7% by the end of the year, Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas said during an interview with former Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel.

The economic framework Venezuela has built is favorable 'because it allows recovering investment and significantly distributing it,' Cabezas said. He pointed out that, through the National Development Fund (FONDEN), about 13 billion bolivares have been invested in railroads, ports, bridges, housing, scientific and technological provisions and integral attention centers.

'It is an investment that comes from oil, a capital heritage that grows in significant housing programs. That shows that we are on the right way: recovering the capital of the Republic and increasing the rate of employment,' he said.

'We will close this year with an unemployment rate of 7%, a goal not reached for the last 30 years, approximately.'

About reduction in foreign debt, Cabezas said that things have had substantial improvement. 'Venezuelans can say that we have a manageable foreign debt. It once reached 30% GDP, and it is now at 17%.'

The plan is that at the end of this decade, foreign debt will have reached just 12% GDP ... 'We still owe Bs.22 billion, which is manageable.'

Minister Cabezas said there's a program of reduction of the debt that started in 2004 and is being continued. 'The difference with previous governments is that they counted on great oil prosperity, with the price of the barrel hiking from two to ten dollars, and later, during the 80s, we had a second chance of oil growth resulting from problems in Iran that took crude prices from $12 to $26.'

'Even with all that oil prosperity, Venezuela acquired a terrible debt. Now, we have not gotten in debt, and we are not going to.'

'These $12 billion dollars from oil fixed flows have been invested in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela needing not even a single dollar of debt. On the contrary, we paid the first quarter of debt to the World Bank in advance', he said".