Venezuelan Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez said he’ll keep the government’s options open for dealing with the effects of falling oil prices and won’t rule out a currency devaluation or a reduction in dollar sales.
Venezuela, the fourth-biggest supplier of foreign crude oil to the U.S., is taking steps to save dollars after oil prices collapsed over the past six months. The government relies on oil revenue to finance half its budget. “We’re applying measures to maintain reserves at an adequate level,” Rodriguez, 71, said today in an interview at his office in Caracas. “We have to restrict all unnecessary spending. We’re doing it in the public administration, and we should do it together as an economy.”
Venezuela plans to tap its $42.4 billion in international reserves, and draw on off-budget development funds, to keep up spending on President Hugo Chavez’s social programs this year, Rodriguez said. Regarding plans to devalue the currency or institute a dual exchange rate, Rodriguez said he doesn’t “rule it out, but it’s not on the agenda of measures that will be immediately applied.”
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