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<h2><b>Chavez Announces $3 Billion for Venezuela’s “Energy” Revolution
</b></h2><font size=3>March 31st 2008, by Chris Carlson -
Venezuelanalysis.com
<a href="http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3310" eudora="autourl">
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3310<br><br>
</a>March 31, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)- Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez approved funds and announced new plans for an "energy"
revolution on his weekly talk show Aló Presidente yesterday. The
president inaugurated a new "socialist" community of houses
built from oil derivatives, and announced that Venezuela would be a major
producer of oil derivatives such as fertilizers and plastics by the year
2013.<br><br>
Broadcasting from the central state of Carabobo, President Chavez toured
a new community of 459 houses made of Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a plastic
material produced from petroleum. Venezuela's state-owned petrochemical
industry produces the PVC from the by-products of the oil industry,
making it cheaper than traditional building materials.<br><br>
The first of its kind, the community is entirely made up of houses from
the Venezuelan state company Petrocasa, which manufactures the plastic
forms to be filled with concrete. Venezuela plans to construct these
"socialist" communities around the country, and around 60,000
houses of this kind per year.<br><br>
"This is the first Petrocasa community that we have inaugurated, but
we are going to fill Venezuela with these houses," Chavez
said.<br><br>
The new housing program is only one part of what President Chavez calls
the "energy" revolution, a program to develop various
industries for the processing of raw materials, such as the petrochemical
industry. <br><br>
Chavez announced that the Venezuelan government will invest around $20
billion over the next six years in the development of 52 industrial
projects, and approved a total of $2.96 billion to be invested this year.
The president emphasized that under previous governments these kinds of
investments were not possible.<br><br>
"Before, to make this kind of investment, they had to call the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the World Bank, or turn the country
over to international investors. Not now, because we have created
our own development funds," he said.<br><br>
The investments will come from Venezuela's national development fund
Fonden, which, as Chavez noted, now has around $35 billion dollars
available for investment in the country's development. The national
development fund is fed by a portion of state income diverted from the
nation's international reserves.<br><br>
Chavez emphasized that many of the new industrial projects will be placed
in the southern region of the country to give economic development to
poorer, underdeveloped areas. The government also estimates that more
than 600,000 new jobs will be created as a direct result of the
program.<br><br>
The president talked by satellite to leaders from a nearby community
where another 700 of the new houses are being constructed, but he
insisted that the government speed up the construction of new housing,
and proposed a new tax on oil profits to pay for it.<br><br>
"We have to increase the pace of replacing shantytowns with real
communes, and communities," said Chavez, "where the people can
live fully, with the highest sum of happiness."<br><br>
Chavez also talked by satellite to Food Minister Felix Osorio for the
inauguration of a new "Mercal," the government-subsidized food
markets. He reiterated that Venezuela is working to become
self-sufficient in its food supply, and thanked the governments of
Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay for providing new technology needed to
install factories in Venezuela for the production of foodstuffs.
<br><br>
He added that Venezuela will soon be self-sufficient in food production,
but until enough food can be produced domestically, they will continue to
import food from their neighbors.<br><br>
"We are working on projects to produce all the chicken that we
consume. But, meanwhile, since our national production isn't
enough, we are bringing the best production from Argentina, Brazil,
Nicaragua, Colombia, Ecuador, and other countries," Chavez
said.<br><br>
The Venezuelan president also insisted that the United States government
was carrying out plans to create food shortages in the country in order
to destabilize his government. He made reference to the previous cases of
Nicaragua and Cuba, where the US government blocked food imports with the
intention of destabilizing their governments.<br><br>
"When Bush talks about food shortages, he's not talking about the
reality, but rather his desires. But I guarantee that we are going to
defeat him, because now the people of Venezuela are better fed; and not
only with food, but with health, housing, work, and industry," he
said.<br><br>
<b>Source URL:</b>
<a href="http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/<br>
</a><b>Printed:</b> March 31st 2008<br>
<b>License:</b> Published under a Creative Commons license (by-nc-nd).
See <i>creativecommons.org</i> for more information. <br><br>
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