www.vheadline.com Posted: Thursday, March 06, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Agriculture Supplies & Service Corporation (Casa) president, Gerardo Liscano says primary foodstuffs will be on sale at wholesale markets.

The products the public can buy are: black beans, lentils, dried peas, maize bread powder, sardines, tuna, pasta, rice and powdered milk.

Liscano has announced that local garrisons will oversee the whole process to avoid lack of supplies and possible loss of material through desabastecimiento. ”We are currently engaged in a deal to import a greater variety of foodstuffs within the next couple of weeks.”

Meanwhile, State consumer watchdog committee (Indecu) has been checking 1,000 complaints of speculation.

Liscano sums up saying 238 stores have been penalized but 116 re-opened after it was discovered that they had been misinformed about prices. “The offenders are small stores and supermarket in popular areas."

Indecu president, Samuel Ruh confirms that all the big supermarket changes are adhering to the government’s price listings.

The Production & Trade (MPC) Ministry has granted Indecu 3 billion bolivares to bolster Indecu in the upcoming exchange rate markets ... “Indecu will also be moving its offices to Parque Central.”

www.vheadline.com Posted: Thursday, March 06, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

The Confederation of Trade Unions executive (without Carlos Ortega) is embarking on some damage control as it fights off criticism inside the trade union movement regarding its seemingly compliance to the wishes of Federation of Chambers of Industry & Commerce (Fedecamaras).

Executive secretary Pablo Castro says it’s time for reform and suggests pruning the top heavy federation and union affiliation structure. “We have a union structure as if we were a developed country … Germany has reduced unions to around 15 and has come out stronger.”

The structure the CTV in Venezuela, Castro says, must streamline itself to between 15 and 20 organizations according to economic sectors.

Castro admits that the proposal will have a stormy passage as old-style union bosses resist change and fear a loss of power.

The CTV has convened a Congress for April 8-9 and Castro’s proposal will figure high on the agenda. The CTV leader adds that Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) union structure must change with the times and says he has the support of Froilan Barrios and Alfredo Ramos.

straitstimes.asia1.com.sg

NEW YORK - The most common cause of recessions - a surge in oil prices - is again afflicting the global economy.

Just as they have before every American downturn over the last 40 years, energy costs have risen significantly in the last year, capped by a sharp spike since December.

With more money being spent on petrol and heating fuel, economic growth has slowed in both the United States and Europe, and the uneven recovery that began in late 2001 is facing perhaps its biggest threat yet.

Most forecasters expect the US economy to avoid a new recession this year, saying that only an unexpectedly protracted war in Iraq would keep oil at its current price or higher.

But any war is an unknown, and the price increases for both oil and natural gas have already caused consumers to cut back on other spending.

The increases have also created a new problem for businesses trying to emerge from the hangover of the late-1990s boom.

'The economy is extremely fragile,' said Mr Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com, a research company in West Chester, Pennsylvania. 'We've got some real problems if this drags on for any length of time.'

Energy costs began rising more than a year ago, when the Organisation of Petroleum- Exporting Countries cut production in response to the weak global economy.

The potential war in the Persian Gulf, political chaos in Venezuela and a cold winter in the United States caused the price of a barrel of oil to soar to almost US$40 (S$70) last Thursday, the highest since Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, before retreating to US$36.60 last Friday in New York. That is about 69 per cent higher than it was a year ago.

Every time the oil prices have risen by at least 60 per cent since World War II, a recession has occurred in the US, with the exception of a one-month blip in oil prices in 1987.

The current annual increase is similar in size to the jumps of late 1990, when a recession was starting, and the summer of 2000, nine months before another began.

Higher energy costs reduce economic growth by effectively forcing families and businesses to send more money to a small number of oil-producing countries, leaving less to be spent on goods and services that create jobs at home.

Energy prices affect Europe and Japan even more severely than the United States, which produces more of its own oil and natural gas.

Britain reported last week that its economy had grown at the most sluggish pace in 10 years during the last three months of last year. The German economy shrank at the end of last year for the first time in a year.

'The single best cyclical indicator for the world economy is the price of oil,' said economist Andrew Oswald at the University of Warwick outside Coventry, England. 'Nothing moves in the world economy without oil in there somewhere.'

In 1990, oil prices fell almost as soon as the US attacked Iraq, and many economists think the same thing could happen this year.

Even if a war temporarily reduced the supply of energy, President George W. Bush could release oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to bring down prices, analysts note.--New York Times

Friday March 7, 4:39 AM

CARACAS (Dow Jones)--Crude production at Venezuela's state-owned oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela SA (E.PVZ) currently stands at 2.5 million barrels a day, the nation's Oil Minister was quoted as saying in a report by state-run news agency Venpres Thursday.

"We're close to reaching our OPEC production ... by the end of this month," Rafael Ramirez was further quoted as saying. Venezuela's official output quota as agreed upon by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, stands at 2.819 million b/d. Ramirez could not be reached for additional comment.

The government's production level sharply contrasts with figures maintained by ex-staff of PdVSA. They claim production stands only at 1.09 million b/d after PdVSA temporary shut in 500,000 b/d of crude production due to an export bottleneck in the east. The government, however, claims the 500,000 b/d have already been recovered.

A nationwide strike which started Dec. 2 and lasted for two months severely crippled exports and production, which stood at around 3 million b/d by the end of November.

The company is struggling to reach or go beyond the 2 million b/d production level, analysts have said. After focusing on easy oil fields that don't require much added pressure to get the oil flowing, PdVSA faces difficulties as mature oil fields are more labor and capital intensive and take more time to pump oil.

Experts have said they doubt PdVSA would reach 2.5 million b/d any time soon due to a lack of financial and human resources.

-By Fred Pals, Dow Jones Newswires; 58414-2887461; fred.palsdowjones.com

www.forbes.com Reuters, 03.06.03, 3:30 PM ET CARACAS, Venezuela, March 6 (Reuters) - Venezuela's foreign-financed Cerro Negro extra heavy oil upgrading project has temporarily shut down its synthetic crude processing unit, project partner ExxonMobil (nyse: XOM - news - people) said on Thursday. "The plant's process operations have been temporarily and safely shut down," an ExxonMobil statement said. An investigation determined the fuel gas system had been upset but did not give further details. The upgrading unit, which has the capacity to process 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) of extra heavy crude from the Orinoco region into 108,000 bpd of light synthetic oil, was restarting after a strike by foes of President Hugo Chavez cut gas feedstock supplies and forced a temporary shutdown. The statement said the project continued to pump some 60,000 bpd of extra heavy oil. The oil was being placed into storage until the processing unit resumes operations.