Oil In Venezuela And The Venezuela Economy

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Throughout the presidency of Hugo Chávez the Venezuelan government have made progress with its economic policies especially with regards to the redistribution of wealth through social policies and land reform programs and the democratization of economic activity by the implementation of self-management at the workplace. Another area in which the Chávez government obtained success was with reasserting the country’s economic sovereignty. This was achieved by encouraging increased Latin American economic integration and thereby resisting an American push for free trade and by reclaiming control of the state owned oil industry (Wilpert, 2007, p. 69). The government regained control by completely reforming the Venezuelan oil industry, which then in turn prove to be of great importance to the continued support and love for Chávez as the it would have otherwise been difficult for Chávez to steer the nation into the direction of his socialist ideology. However, before we take a closer look at the Chávez administration and its policies towards the oil industry and the reformation of it, there are two things we need to understand but oil in Venezuela. Firstly, “(…) Venezuela is the world’s fifth largest oil exporting country, with the largest reserves of conventional oil (light and heavy crude) in the western hemisphere and the largest reserves of non-conventional oil (extra-heavy crude) in the world.” (Wilpert, 2007, p. 87). Secondly, oil production is one of the most lucrative industries in the world as the ratio between the cost of producing a unit and its market price is usually higher then at other industries, which makes this industry one with tremendous amount of conflict (Wilpert, 2007, p. 87). As we can see above the oil industry m... ... middle of paper ... ...r every barrel sold, whilst the state lowered the income taxation on oil extraction from 59% to 50% (Wilpert, 2007, p. 95). The government argued that it was much easier for it to collect royalty payment then to collect taxes on oil income, as it is more difficult for the government to track and calculate the taxes on oil production profits as they involve far more variables then simple tracking how much crude is being extracted and the calculating the royalty payment based on the current price for oil (Wilpert, 2007, p. 96). What this essentially does is that it cuts the expenses tax deductible, which in turn gives the companies a strong incentive to make their operations more effective and as such it can be argued that “(…) royalty makes the interests of the natural resource owner (the state) and of the investor (the company) coincide.” (Wilpert, 2007, p. 96).

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