Source: BCV 2009 report
We haven't got the Central Bank of Venezuela's 2010 Economic report just yet. Things have changed since 2009 as oil prices are going up again. I will refer here to figures of 2008 from the 2009 report and not those of 2009 just because the military regime says 2009 was an exceptional year. So we assume 2008 is the "good year", as oil prices got to the highest levels then and as we are approaching the average of 2008 already now.
In the first graph you can see the scope of oil in the total exports for 2008. When Chávez came to power, non-oil exports accounted for more than 10% of our exports. Now they account for 6% of exports. Now: most of our non-oil exports are things like aluminium, iron and gold. What else do Venezuelans export within that 6% piece?
Below you see the different non-oil-non-iron export products for 2008. It was worse for 2009, so I decided to use 2008.
Oil prices have been higher, much higher since 2000 than what they were in the nineties but it suffices for them to stop growing fast enough for the Venezuelan economy to get into trouble.
Oil prices will remain high for years to come. Still, this generation will see a dramatic fuel source shift. What's going to happen to Venezuela then?
Meanwhile, the military men who killed many in 1992 in their bloody coup against a democratically elected government that was not up for re-election, celebrate themselves: the military honchos, now in their late fifties, claim the "heroic youth of 19 years ago" - i.e. themselves- are saving the nation.
