Economy
In a report forwarded to its clients at the end of October, investment bank Barclays Capital, following a meeting with Venezuelan authorities, reported that state-run oil holding Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) and the Venezuelan Guayana Corporation (CVG) have plans to issue bonds in US dollars by the end of 2009.

The issue would stand at USD 3-5 billion.

If a deal is made for USD 3 billion, Venezuela's total debt, including the debt in Venezuelan bolivars, at the official exchange rate, will heighten 51 percent in 2009, from USD 64.7 billion to USD 97.7 billion.

While in terms of the size of the economy the Venezuelan debt is not statistically significant, it should be noted that because of the fixed exchange rate, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimated in US dollars turns out to be artificially high.

According to Barclays' calculation, taking into account the parallel exchange rate, the domestic total debt will increase from 27.6 percent of the GDP in 2008 up to 39.2 percent this current year.

In 2010, the investment bank, in view of the budget passed by the National Assembly, estimates that the government will place the equivalent to USD 10 billion in local currency-denominated bonds and dollar-denominated titles for USD 12 billion.

In this way, ending 2010, the domestic debt would be, in the aggregate, as high as USD 113.7 billion.

Translated by Conchita Delgado

Víctor Salmerón
EL UNIVERSAL