By the Numbers
Venezuela: By the Numbers
12 LONG YEARS. When Hugo Chávez Frías took office in February 1999, he promised Venezuelans equality, opportunity, and prosperity. Twelve years later, the rich are still rich and the poor are poorer as they face higher food prices (due to shortages of basic goods), persistent blackouts, and a shrinking economy with the highest inflation in the Americas and soaring unemployment.
15 CANDLES. Fifteen out of the 23 states that comprise Venezuela have been affected by the rolling blackouts, including the oil-producing state of Zulia.
16 CLAIMS. Venezuela faces at least 16 claims before the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Claimants include Mexico’s CEMEX, U.S. oil giant ConocoPhillips, Switzerland’s Holcim, Canada’s Gold Reserve, and Britain’s Vestey Group. The Center is an autonomous international institution with over 140 member States. The primary purpose of ICSID is to provide facilities for conciliation and arbitration of international investment disputes.
17TH WORST DICTATOR. The July/August 2010 issue of Foreign Policy Magazine places Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in the company of the most elitist and corrupt men in the world. In its “Worst of the Worst” issue, FPM ranked Mr. Chávez as the 17th worst dictator in the world. It gives him the dubious distinction of having been ranked lower than the Castro brothers of Cuba (#21), Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus (#18) – who still maintains a secret police force actually called the KGB – and Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso (#22) – who ruthlessly murdered his predecessor in a 1987 coup.
18-MONTH PASS. Before a new Venezuelan parliament was inaugurated in January 2011 with an opposition majority of 52%, President Chávez induced the outgoing legislature to grant him the power to rule by decree for the next 18 months.
25-PAGE INDICTMENT. In a 25-page indictment made public in March 2010, a Spanish judge formally charged Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and his government with aiding and abetting Basque separatist group ETA and Colombia’s guerrilla group, FARC, in a plot to assassinate top political leaders, including former Colombian Presidents Andrés Pastrana and Alvaro Uribe.
ALI BABA AND THE 40 THIEVES. On a monthly basis, suspected Venezuelan drug kingpin Walid Makled allegedly made payoffs totaling $1 million to at least 40 senior Venezuelan military officials.
52% MAJORITY. On a day of heavy turnout, 52% of Venezuelan voters chose opposition parties versus 48% percent for Mr. Chávez’s PSUV in the September 2010 parliamentary elections, despite the President’s successful efforts re-drawing congressional districts to his advantage.
DEAD LAST AT 72. The 2010 Survey of Mining Companies by the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank, gives the Venezuelan government an abysmal rating regarding its handling of the mining industry and its appeal to foreign investors. Among the 72 countries measured, Venezuela came in dead last, outpacing developing states such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Honduras.
REJECTED BY 80% OF VENEZUELANS. A survey, conducted by Caracas-based Alfredo Keller & Associates in May 2010, shows that 80% of Venezuelans reject Mr. Chávez’s expropriation measures.
90% E-MARKET. Government-controlled CANTV, which was renationalized in 2007, monopolizes ADSL service and controls more than 90% of the Internet market.
129TH OUT OF 129. With a score of 3.4, Venezuela scored the lowest ranking among 129 economies in the 2011 International Property Right Index. The report points out that there is an important correlation between countries where private property is respected and economic prosperity.
GRADE OF 163. The Freedom of the Press 2010 report by Freedom House ranks Venezuela 163 out of 192 countries analyzed in terms of freedom of the press. Venezuela’s grade puts Chávez’s government behind countries such as Iraq, Pakistan, and Kyrgyzstan. The contrast with other nations is even starker when Venezuela is stacked against its neighbors. Of the 35 countries in the Americas, Venezuela came in at 34, surpassing only Cuba. Venezuela and Cuba were the only countries in the Western Hemisphere graded as “not free.”
DIAL 164 FOR DRUGS. According to the 2011 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, drug cartels have taken an interest in what Venezuela has to offer – weak anti-money laundering laws, limited bilateral cooperation with other countries, corruption in law enforcement, and its strategic location near drug-producing countries. In short, Venezuela has become a haven for drug traffickers seeking to strengthen their distribution and money laundering operations. The report asserts that corruption plays a big role in Venezuela’s role in drug trafficking. Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index for 2010 ranks Venezuela 164 out of 178 countries.
170+ IN 2010. According to a September 2010 report from Coindustria, Venezuela’s largest industrial chamber, the Venezuelan government expropriated 174 companies in 2010 alone. Since 2007, the rate of private property expropriations has risen 923.5 percent, according to the report.
RANKING OF 172. President Chávez’s expropriation binges of domestic and international companies alike are among the factors destroying Venezuela’s reputation as a place to do business, according to a study from the World Bank. The 2011 Doing Business Report ranks Venezuela 172nd out of 183 countries sampled in terms of places to do business, behind Iraq (#166) and Afghanistan (#167). The World Bank’s ranking puts Venezuela dead last among all North and South American countries. Factoring into Venezuela’s standing were its poor record on granting credit (#176) and protecting investors (#179).
175 OUT OF 179. Oil giant Venezuela is at the bottom of the barrel, according to the 2011 Index of Economic Freedom by The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation. The South American country ranks 175th in a list of 179 and 28th out of 29 neighboring countries in the South and Central America/Caribbean region.
365 AND COUNTING. Since 2005, there have been 365 reported residential expropriations in Venezuela. Experts believe this new brand of expropriations is Chávez’s way of creating an illusion of progress in his so-called Great Housing Mission.
“NOT GROWN IN VENEZUELA” CROPS UP 442%. In 2010, Venezuela’s food imports reached $13 million (US), a 442% rise above its 2003 levels. Today, Venezuela imports 40% of its rice and corn, 56% of its coffee, and 60% of its sugar. Experts attribute this phenomenon to three main factors – expropriations, price controls and poor government policies.
762 EXPROPRIATIONS STRONG AND GROWING. A report released in May 2010 by a Venezuelan civil leadership group shows the Chávez government expropriated 762 companies between 2005 and 2009. The report confirms a disturbing trend of increased government hostility towards the private sector in Venezuela.
1168 SEIZURES. An analysis by the Venezuelan Confederation of Industries (Conindustria) reveals that from 2002 to 2012 the Chávez government has taken over 1168 foreign and domestic companies.
A NEW RECORD IN 2015. Economic forecast reports released in April 2010 by both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund conclude that, contrary to almost every other country in the Western Hemisphere, Venezuela’s economy will continue to deteriorate. The World Bank’s Chief Economist for Latin America blamed the plummeting Venezuelan economy on President Chávez’s anti-private property policies. The IMF report projects that by 2015 only three countries in the Western Hemisphere will have worse economies than that of Venezuela.
20,000 TONS OF WASTE. Under President Chávez’s watch, at least 20,000 tons of rotten food was discovered in May 2010 in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela’s busiest port. Among the food going to waste was rice, flour, milk, sugar, and cooking oil. Puerto Cabello is managed by the federal government.
118,500+ HOMICIDES. Venezuela is struggling with a decade-long surge in homicides, with about 118,541 since President Hugo Chávez took office in 1999, according to the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, a group that compiles figures based on police files.
2.5 MILLION HOUSING DEFICIT. Ahead of the 2012 presidential elections, President Chávez promised to build two million homes by 2017. However, during his 12 years in power, he has only delivered 400,000 homes. The National Institute of Statistics puts the housing deficit at 2.5 million.
2.5 MILLION HECTARES SEIZED. Since President Chávez rose to power in 1999, the State has seized about 2.5 million hectares of land; only 50,000 of those are currently active. Experts estimate there are about 30 million agricultural hectares in Venezuela which can be cultivated.
$5.5 MILLION REASONS TO LOOK THE OTHER WAY. Suspect Venezuelan drug lord Walid Makled allegedly paid $5.5 million to Venezuela’s current navy commander for a major warehouse concession at Port Cabello, the country’s main port. In addition, at least five cocaine-laden planes allegedly flew daily from the city of San Fernando de Apure with “100 percent” knowledge of Venezuelan officials.
NEGATIVE $1.4 BILLION. In 2010, Venezuela was the only South American country to have a negative balance of foreign investment, as that number dropped by $1.4 billion.
$2 BILLION CHALLENGE. In September 2010, Gold Reserve Inc., a Canada-based mining company, filed a $1.928 billion arbitration claim with the World Bank against the Government of Venezuela. The measure was prompted by the April 2008 move by the Chávez government to seize the company’s Venezuelan mining operations in the southeastern region of Venezuela, one of the largest undeveloped gold and copper deposits in the world. The company had been operating the “Brisas Project” since 1992.
MINUS $3.1 BILLION. A report released May 2010 by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLA) concludes that, in 2009 alone, Chávez’s systematic nationalization of major industries has caused a negative inflow of $3.1 billion in foreign investment dollars in Venezuela.
$4 BILLION DEBT. Venezuela’s state-run oil company, known as PDVSA, has a $4 billion debt owed to contractors.
$5 BILLION ARMOR. After returning from a visit to Venezuela in April 2010, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin boasted that he had sold President Hugo Chávez another $5 billion in weapons – a huge sum for a Latin American country that is deep in recession and busy rationing its water, electricity and hard currency.
IOUs OF NEARLY $15 BILLION. According to a May 2010 report from Ecoanalítica, a Caracas-based economic consulting firm, Venezuela has failed to pay $14.65 billion of the $23.3 billion it owes to expropriated companies.
$23.3 BILLION IN EXPROPRIATIONS. Almost two dozen American companies – including Cargill, Coca-Cola , ConocoPhillips , ExxonMobil , Helmerich & Payne Hilton, McDonald’s , PepsiCo and Wendy’s – have either had their holdings confiscated or been threatened with takeover by the Venezuelan government.
The costs of major nationalizations since 2006 – aside from seized land, farms, sugar mills or industrial facilities – total at least $23.3 billion, according to Ecoanalítica, a Caracas-based economic-research outfit.