[Telesur report on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's announcement last Friday that Venezuela had paid off the debt it owed to the World Bank. Chavez's announcement was made during a ceremony that was held around the Presidential Palace of Miraflores, to commemorate the 13th of April of 2002, the day when a civic-military rebellion restored the constitutional order in Venezuela. For a Spanish version of this article click here. --Ed]
Venezuela's Chávez Announces World Bank Debt Has Been Paid Off
By TeleSur/Prensa Web RNV
April 15, 2007
"With this last payment (to the World Bank), paying off the debt that was almost 3 billion dollars in 1998, I can say to them today that we don't owe a cent of debt either to the International Monetary Fund or to the World Bank," he exclaimed.
President Hugo Chávez Frías, announced this Friday that Venezuela paid off the debt that it owed to the World Bank. "Yesterday (on Thursday) we paid the last installment of the debt (. . .) to the World Bank."
Thus he highlighted it during a ceremony that was held around the Palace of Miraflores, right at the heart of Caracas, to commemorate the 13th of April of 2002, the day when a civic-military rebellion restored the constitutional order in Venezuela.
"With this last payment (to the World Bank), paying off the debt that was almost 3 billion dollars in 1998, I can say to them today that we don't owe a cent of debt either to the International Monetary Fund or to the World Bank," he exclaimed.
The Venezuelan head of state declared that he felt "happy" about the end of this obligation, after reminding the audience that Venezuela helped the "sister Republic of Argentina pay its debt to the International Monetary Fund."
"I feel very happy that Venezuela has helped Argentina free itself from the International Monetary Fund. Argentina no longer owes anything to the IMF, among other things, thanks to the support of Venezuela," he said.
(click here to view entire article)
And this is important why? Venezuelan public debt is $76 billion (domestic and foreign) and it has INCREASED under Chávez, in spite of enormous oil revenues. Venezuela continues to be a rentist nation.
The $50 million that Chávez paid was just the last installment in payments that had been budgeted in Caldera's last year in power.
Some revolution.
Posted by: Henry | April 20, 2007 at 04:14 PM