[R-G] Minister Calls on Venezuelans to Repatriate Their Investments in the U.S.

[Anthony Fenton]

Minister Calls on Venezuelans to Repatriate Their Investments in the  
U.S.
October 11th 2008, by Tamara Pearson - Venezuelanalysis.com
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3869

Mérida, October 10, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- As world stock  
markets tumble, a range of economic experts met in Caracas to discuss  
alternative solutions to the crisis. Venezuela's Minister for Planning  
and Development, Haiman El Troudi, highlighted the relative strength  
of the Venezuelan economy and called for Venezuelan resources invested  
in the United States to be repatriated.

At the International Conference of Political Economy being held in  
Caracas, Venezuela, from Wednesday until this Saturday, 40 specialists  
from around the world are analysing the current financial crisis and  
proposing south-based and alternative model solutions.

In his presentation, El Troudi outlined how "the Venezuelan state has  
been strengthening under the Bolivarian socialist project" and that  
due to its on-target economic policies, those Venezuelans who have  
capital in the United States and who still have time to rescue it,  
should repatriate it because it will be safer in Venezuela than in the  
speculative banks of the U.S.

"Bring your capital [here], together we're going to construct a great  
country," said El Troudi.

He felt it important that it be recognized that the Venezuelan  
government had understood on time that the world economic situation is  
a structural issue and so it developed an economic policy that  
resulted in international reserves of $40 billion, which represent a  
cushion to enable Venezuela to confront the crisis better than other  
countries.

He elaborated that one of the measures taken by the executive of the  
government, was the creation of an obligatory portfolio of industrial  
credit in order to boost the productive apparatus of the nation. While  
mortgage interest rates were rising globally, the Venezuelan  
government regulated the real estate quota and obliged banks to lend  
to savers who were interested in housing.

He also highlighted that a reserve of food is being set up, which will  
serve to ease the effects of the financial crisis.

The IMF should kill itself

Further, El Troudi argued that the South should demand the immediate  
cancellation of its external debt. He said this statement is more  
valid than ever in face of the current crisis, and that Latin America  
demands control of the movement of its capital. He proposed creating  
mechanisms of fair trade and getting rid of banking secrets and fiscal  
parasites, and also demanded the creation of social security funds for  
all peoples of the world and the implementation of a fixed social  
income.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez commented at the forum yesterday,  
"The people of the south, we demand the dissolution of the  
International Monetary Fund," and El Troudi echoed those comments,  
saying the IMF (International Monetary Fund) should "dissolve, should  
kill itself."

El Troudi criticised the World Bank and the IMF for not offering  
tangible alternatives to the economic crisis, and said, "For them the  
poor pay for the plates that the rich break."

"Where are the prescriptions of [the IMF and World Bank] who  
supposedly have solutions to all the problems of capitalism? This is  
what they tried to impose on Latin America, with the disastrous  
application of neoliberal politics."

Chavez reminded listeners that the IMF was one of the first  
organizations to announce its support of the new government during the  
coup of April 2002.

"They try to wash their hands now and, furthermore, they dare to come  
out and present themselves as the life-saving doctors, [but] they are  
the ones to blame, they should resign."

A need for regional unity

El Troudi argued that the cosmetic actions that have so far been  
implemented won't stop the financial crisis, and the solution is in  
the "deepening of the socialist path."

He said that what we are seeing is the end of neoliberal hegemony.

"If the Bolivarian revolution hadn't arrived it wouldn't have been  
possible to prepare the subjective and objective conditions to  
withstand the burden, the onslaught of capitalism" he added.

At the conference, Gladys Hernandez, from the Centre for Research on  
the World Economy in Havana, Cuba, expressed the need for regional  
unity in face of the crisis. "It is necessary to foster the  
reindustrialization of the Latin American region with our resources  
and to try to establish a fair balance with foreign investments that  
would be capable of achieving certain earnings...as until now what  
they have done is rob our countries of their generated resources."

Julio Gambina, an Argentinean economist said, "It is necessary to  
reorganize the world system and this proposal has to come from the  
South, but it shouldn't come out of this meeting of intellectuals,  
rather it has to do with the construction of a political force that  
defines our course."

Another Argentinean economist, Jorge Marchini, highlighted the  
necessity of alternative mechanisms like ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative  
for America) and the Bank of the South.

The economic minister of Ecuador, Pedro Paez, proposed the creation of  
a single currency for Latin America, with the aim of strengthening  
production and confronting the financial crisis, and agreed with  
Marchina about the importance of the Bank of the South.

"The Bank of the South is at the heart of the development of banking  
of the new time. This entity will enable the transformation of the  
productive apparatus and generate mechanisms of coherence, between the  
countries which make up the initiative."

The economic policy conference was entitled, "The South's Answers to  
the World Economic Crisis," took place in the Venezuelan School of  
Planning, and was jointly organised by the Miranda International  
Centre and the Venezuelan Ministry of Planning.

Economic experts at the conference came from over 20 countries.

Some of the themes they are debating include; crisis or deterioration  
of the model, crisis and economic models, the dismantling of the  
neoliberal model, and the Washington consensus, axes and challenges  
for the economic development of the people, and globalization  
questioned.