<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

The Caracas (Simon Bolivar) international airport at Maiquetia authority (Iaaim) has laid off 90 workers as a reaction to tax and other income losses incurred during the December-January national stoppage. 

Iaaim director Captain (ret.) Jose Vielma Mora says the company lost more than 14 billion bolivares in Q1 and argues that there is no other solution but to dismiss workers. 

• The 90 workers are not on the permanent payroll and their contract has already expired . 

Over the last two years, 426  persons were given contract jobs at the airport in operations, public relations, protocol, security, maintenance and marketing.  The first 30 layoffs took place last week and included 14 security agents. 

Vielma Mora says he knows the dismissals will hit an already suffering Vargas State but adds that he hopes to recover taxes and normal income by the end of April.

SkyePharma PLC Preliminary Results Announcement for the Year Ended 31st December 2002 Wednesday April 2, 7:31 am ET

LONDON, April 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SkyePharma PLC (Nasdaq: SKYE - News; LSE: SKP - News) today announced the Company's financial and operating results for the year ended December 31, 2002. ......Our 2001 strategic collaboration with Astralis Ltd (Astralis) covers the development of Psoraxine(TM), a unique injectable treatment for psoriasis, a chronic skin disorder that affects approximately 3% of the world population. There is no approved cure for psoriasis and most approved treatments provide only temporary or incomplete relief and may also cause serious side effects. Psoraxine(TM) is a protein that stimulates cells from the patient's immune system to reverse the inflammatory process responsible for psoriasis symptoms. Astralis has completed clinical studies in Venezuela using first generation Psoraxine(TM) to treat nearly 3,000 psoriasis patients, the vast majority of whom responded positively with few side effects. We are working with Astralis to develop a second-generation product, now being produced in the USA, and to validate the promising results from Venezuela in US clinical studies that will be used for regulatory and marketing approval. Following the recent completion of toxicological studies, Astralis expects authorisation to commence US clinical trials later this year.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 By: Robert Rudnicki

Business sector leaders have again criticized the Confederation of Trade Unions' (CTV) call for 30% pay rises, stressing that in the current economic environment preserving jobs was significantly more important than looking for pay increases.

Industrial Confederation (Conindustria) president Lope Mendoza pointed to the fact that unemployment in the industrial sector currently stands at around 16%, and warned that this figure may increase over the remainder of this year.

Mendoza warned against heaping any additional pressures on employers' shoulders, as well as on the government, which due to the opposition work stoppage is also short on funds needed for any possible salary hike. Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Fedecamaras) vice president Albis Munoz echoed the sentiment.

April 2, 2003 GM halts activity at Venezuelan unit

General Motors Corp. has suspended production in Venezuela because of a shortage of parts from local suppliers, costing it millions of dollars in lost sales.

Production was halted last week and will resume April 21, said Peter Friedrich, head of marketing and sales for General Motors' Venezuelan unit. The company, whose Venezuelan operations have monthly capacity of about 5,000 vehicles, had been producing about 1,500 cars a month.

"Our local suppliers can't import what they need, and we can't import either," Friedrich said. The company is Venezuela's largest car manufacturer, with about a quarter of the country's automotive market.

Venezuela suspended sales of dollars Jan. 21 in a bid to brake a decline in international reserves. The restrictions have halted imports, threatening to further deepen a recession that was exacerbated by a two-month general strike that ended Feb. 1.

<a href=news.ft.com>By Andy Webb-Vidal in Caracas Published: April 2 2003 5:00 | Last Updated: April 2 2003 5:00

Venezuela's finance ministry on Tuesday began revamping plans for a voluntary external debt swap in the weeks ahead, a move that bankers said would be essential to prevent a default on foreign debt payments.

Tobías Nóbrega, finance minister, was due to meet US investment bankers to define a plan to exchange a portion of the country's $22.4bn (£14.1bn) external debt, on which a raft of interest payments are due in June.

President Hugo Chávez unnerved capital markets last week when he said the country was unable to meet all of its debt payments this year as a result of the damaging, opposition-led strike at Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). The action halted production in the world's fifth-largest exporter in December and January.

The state-owned oil company supplies about half of government revenue, and Mr Chávez said the country would need to "restructure" its debt. His remarks appear unwittingly to have derailed the finance minister's plans for a euro-denominated debt swap due to be offered later this month.

Oil output in Venezuela has recovered from the strike faster than many analysts expected, and government officials claim production levels are currently at around 3m barrels per day.

On paper, relatively high crude oil prices, due to the US-led war in Iraq, have also boosted export revenues. However, the government is struggling to cope with a cash-flow crunch because it has fired more than 16,000 employees at PDVSA, including its trading department, and it is owed at least $1.5bn in back-export income that it has been unable to collect.

Meanwhile, central bank international reserves have remained steady, at just over $12bn, because foreign currency trading has been suspended since January, and the government agency in charge of dollar sales has only begun to release a trickle of dollars this week.

The dearth of dollars is causing severe problems among many companies in Venezuela, especially manufacturers. General Motors' local car assembly plant stopped production last week because it was unable to import essential parts.

A pending ruling by the Supreme Court which could require the government to lift the ban on foreign currency trading could prompt reserves to decline rapidly, raising the risk of default, economists said.

"After Chávez's comments, bondholders are worried that the willingness to pay may not be there," said José Barrionuevo, director of strategy at Barclays Capital.

Concerns over the possibility of a default were also growing on Tuesday after a central bank source confirmed that in the past few weeks the bank had transferred some of its international reserves to the Bank for International Settlements in Basle. Funds held at the BIS cannot be seized in the event of a foreign debt default.

Also, a 150-page internal analysis report on the repercussions of a foreign debt default is understood to have been prepared for Mr Nóbrega, finance ministry sources say. Mr Nóbrega declined to comment.

Economists say oil prices will have to remain relatively high for Venezuela to avoid a default, and much will depend on the duration of a war in Iraq.

There is a also a risk that output volumes will decline in the weeks ahead because of low maintenance of oil wells.

"The financial situation is manageable but extremely critical," said Tamara Herrera, economist with the consultancy Síntesis Financiera.