The Venezuelan Central Bank released final numbers for the Venezuelan GDP and they were worse than the original estimates by the monetary authority with the contraction reaching 3.3% for the year and the final number for the fourth quarter of 2009 reaching -5.8%, even worse than the original estimate of -4.9%.
The Central Bank explained away these numbers saying that they were the result of lower oil prices and the world crisis. Well, if this were true, then the fourth quarter showuld have been the best one of the year and not the worst one, as world economies recovered and the price of oil in the fourt quarter of 2009 was higher tahn in the other three quarters.
Oil GDP in the fourth quarter dropped 10.2%, while the non oil sector contracted 4%. The private sector contracted by 7% as manufacturing was down dramatically Autmobile was down -18%, furniture -46%, metals -46%, Transportation -17%. The only positive sectors were all Government-related: Communications +10.5%, Electricity (????) and water +5.5 and public services (+2.8%)
If you add devaluation and the electricity crisis to these numbers going forward it does not look very pretty.
The Devil's Excrement 
March 5, 2010 at 10:39 am
Exactly Miguel! they NEVER asume their responsibilities…
March 4, 2010 at 2:03 pm
I read some place this morning, that the regime is blaming the enery crisis for this.
No, really… they actually said that! Can find a link to it, But it is in one of today main papers .
March 4, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Remember what I said about Moratinos? I knew this was going to happen:
“Moratinos aclara que pidió ‘información’ a Venezuela, no ‘explicaciones'”
“Antepone los intereses económicos españoles a un ‘absurdo enfrentamiento'”
http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2010/03/04/espana/1267705843.html
This clown basically called Chavez to apologize for the rogue judge that dared to suggest that the venezuelan government had ties/cooperation with ETA & FARC.
March 4, 2010 at 11:52 am
Half Empty: The most probable cause for the survival of the Bolivarian Revolution, past the three or four years’ natural lifespan of such sad socialist frankesteins in LatinAmerica, is that the Venezuelan Executive owns almost all the oil production in Venezuela, and (long before Chavez) this was a socialist country. Really. The government owns the means of production of the main export of the country and decides what to do with it.
If all goes well, when this terminal phase ends, PDV will have to be privatized (because it won’t be producing a profit) and then, Venezuela will have to learn life as a normal country, again.
March 3, 2010 at 6:40 pm
Floyd, the US Executive doesn’t own any oil production.
March 3, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Since government spending is actually an economic negative, the GDP should not include those. It is the same up here, although not as bad yet.
March 3, 2010 at 12:55 pm
The announcements made by the Bolivarian Government are all aimed at the uneducated majority of Venezuelans.
If you dig a little at what they are actually saying, you soon realize that they have a bunch of inconsistencies or lies.
So thanks for the digging and between the lines reading, the problem is getting the message to the uneducated. How can we open their eyes wide open?
March 3, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Ever since Hugo Rafael took over in ’98, and specially after he took control of the Central Bank, I take all their numbers as “sanitized” (or “doctored”, as someone else may also say). The real GPD contraction should then be worse than 3.3%, right?
And, one might ask, what is it going to take for an “inflection point” to take place (i.e. for people to react to a deluge of constant bad news)? More and more we learn that people close to us (not unknown people outside of your circle of friends or inmediate family, as it was in the past) have lost their job (becuase the company they work for has decided they cannot do more business in Venezuela) or that someone got robbed with terrible consequences (death, or permanent disability). What is it going to take, you might ask?
And then, since we live abroad (in the US) when people learn we’re from Venezuela, almost assuredly the first comment goes like “your president …, he’s crazy…, etc., etc.”, and these days when I hear comments like that I automatically start getting stomach burn (it is really out of my control, unfortunately). So, everytime time there happens to be a report on Venezuela (like CNN’s Amanpour report a couple of weeks ago) and it falls short of saying things the way they are, you realize (again and again) that Venezuela’s government has a fierce PR (Public Relations, certainly not to be confused with “Politically Correct”) campaign out. Is there any known estimate as to how much the Venezuelan government spends on PR outside Venezuela (particularly in the US)?