Chavez Frias: hour has come for transformation of Venezuela's economic model

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, March 02, 2003 By: Roy S. Carson

President Hugo Chavez Frias says the hour has come for the transformation of Venezuela's economic model ... the government is focusing all its forces on concrete details in a plan to generate employment, investment and to generate a superior quality of living for the whole of Venezuela's 23.4 million population.

Chavez Frias was speaking after a Council of Ministers meeting with Venezuelan Guayana Corporation (CVG) president Major General (ret.) Francisco Rangel Gomez , representatives of the Bolivar State Federation of Chambers of Commerce & Industry, the State Governor and regional private company executives to formulate decisions to boost small and medium industries throughout the southeastern region.

The National Executive is to contribute 20 billion bolivares as well as subsidies for the purchase of productive machinery this year and an important quantity of seed maize ... a mill and factory for the production of pre-cooked maize and flour is to be opened.

"The time has arrived for the transformation of our economic model," Chavez Frias said.  "We must transcend the 20th century economic model, which only generated wealth and riches for a minority, a model based on inequality which has generated unemployment and poverty through exclusion."

During his visit to Ciudad Guayana, President Chavez initiated a series of workshops in which the national government, together with the CVG and regional government will work with local federations and chambers of commerce under the direction of  Special Economic Zones Minister Francisco Natera to kick-start businesses between Santa Elena de Uairen on the Brazilian border all the way up to the Orinoco delta region in parallel with a similatr project in northern Brazil to stimulate economic integration.