by MARK WEISBROT
There is one important fact that is almost never mentioned in news articles about Venezuela, because it does not fit in with the narrative of a country that has spent wildly throughout the boom years, and will soon, like Greece, face its day of reckoning. That is the government’s debt level: currently about 20 percent of GDP. In other words, even as it was tripling real social spending per person, increasing access to health care and education, and loaning or giving billions of dollars to other Latin American countries, Venezuela was reducing its debt burden during the oil price run-up. Venezuela’s public debt fell from 47.5 percent of GDP in 2003 to 13.8 percent in 2008. In 2009, as the economy shrank, public debt picked up to 19.9 percent of GDP. Even if we include the debt of the state oil company, PDVSA, Venezuela’s public debt is 26 percent of GDP. The foreign part of this debt is less than half of the total.
Compare this to Greece, where public debt is 115 percent of GDP and currently projected to rise to 149 percent in 2013. (The European Union average is about 79 percent.)
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