Chavez offers billions in Latin America

Chavez offers billions in Latin America

news.yahoo.com

Bolstered by windfall oil profits, Chavez’s government is now offering more direct state funding to Latin America and the Caribbean than the United States. A tally by The Associated Press shows Venezuela has pledged more than $8.8 billion in aid, financing and energy funding so far this year.

While the most recent figures available from Washington show $3 billion in U.S. grants and loans reached the region in 2005, it isn’t known how much of the Venezuelan money has actually been delivered.

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Looks like Chavez strikes again.

But this aid isn't limited to his region. Low-income Americans get cheap heating oil, while the former Soviet republic of Belarus is counting on Chavez to help pay off a $460 million gas bill to Russia. But most of the funding goes to Latin America.

Venezuela's funding differs from U.S. aid because it includes investments that in the U.S. would come from the private sector and purchases of bonds that are later resold. U.S. aid tends to be low-profile, constrained by strict guidelines and often distributed through other institutions so that recipients may not know it’s from the U.S. government.

Looks like Chavez is not so selfish about the big dollars Venezuela gets from vast oil reserves - and shares that with his fellow Latin Americans. And with the poor people of this world.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I have to say,
thats a really nice thing for him to do.

Is he the first Latin American leader to do such a thing?

reply to post by infinite

He truly is very generous in his aid to Latin American countries. Anyway, he still encounters domestic problems, which are not being solved - yet the money is going to foreign countries. But I think his bigger plan of reforms needs to be observed on a larger scale and on the longer time scale - since the money is not just "going out" of Venezuela, but it is locked in future projects which shall give back profits and help to evolve the poor countries of Latin America.

Opponents say Chavez is spending haphazardly on "giveaways" abroad at a time when more than a quarter of Venezuelans still live on less than $3 a day. They question how long he can sustain it since government revenues are highly dependent on fluctuating oil prices.

Chavez argues much of the funding brings benefits back to Venezuela, including oil-related investments and other cooperative exchanges. He says billions more are being spent within Venezuela, and cites social programs credited with helping to reduce poverty.

Most of the funding — $6.3 billion — involves energy projects, some of which directly benefit Venezuela's oil industry, such as a $3.5 billion refinery to be built in Nicaragua. That also includes funding for electricity plants in Haiti and Bolivia, and an estimated $1.6 billion in fuel financing to at least 17 nations.