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Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Exporting oil 'til we drop dead

The Economist had a cute graph where it described the countries with the most diversified exports. That is, the type of country that will export the pasta, the pan to cook the pasta, the sauce for the pasta, the stove to cook the pasta, the dishes to serve the pasta, etc....



As my introduction would have suggested, Italy in 2005 was the most diversified country as far as the nature of its exports, with a whooping 4 percent for pharmaceuticals and 3% for car parts. So I went to the Venezuelan central bank pages to look at the numbers of Venezuela. I did not take the 2005 because, well, we were still digging our way out to a terrible recession. Instead I took the 2006 numbers, two years into the pretended Chavez economical miracle. I could have chosen 2007 but the price increase of oil was too much and it would be unfair. The result imitating the Economist format is below.



Of course, no surprise there. Venezuela after 7 years of Chavez rule depends as heavily or more form oil for its exports.

But heck, I went and looked at the results for the first quarter of 2008. With increasingly higher prices for oil. Well, the situation gets worse. Not only that, but with the disappearance of the private oil sector exports now we have a private sector portion of exports reduced to very little. Should I bother looking to figure out which of the 5 items which represent the largest share of exports, Economist fashion?
Houston, I think we have a problem.

-The end-

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