Saturday, January 10, 2015

Venezuelan President in Tehran

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro arrived in Tehran today looking for Iranian financial help to save its economy with oil prices plunging to $50 per barrel. Oil constitutes 95 percent of Venezuelan hard-currency export earnings. With prices so low, Venezuela is facing serious problems paying for its sizeable social projects, and the country is at risk of financial default in the coming months.

Maduro is on a tour to Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Algeria looking for help. Aside from China, all the other countries he’s visiting are dealing with falling oil prices.

Iran and Russia have to face $50 oil on top of economic sanctions imposed on them because of nuclear and Crimean issues respectively. Iran is losing more than $2 billion a month in export revenues compared to last June when oil was at $114. The Iranian and Russian economies could be facing recession, currency crisis, and runaway inflation. How they could help Venezuela was not clear. China can and is buying large volume of crude from Venezuela at rock-bottom prices.

Photo credit: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (l.) being greeted by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during his official arriving ceremony at Saadabd Palace in Tehran; Saturday 10 January 2015 (Twitter @Rouhani_ir)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

there's no help for that bus driver Maduro. Chavez screwed up for Venezuelan economy horribly and managed to bankrupt a nation floating on oil during the midst of n historic spike in oil prices.

Chavez borrowed heavily from the Chinese and signed away a good portion of Venezuela's future in return for that money.

perhaps if Chavez had surrounded himself with competent people rather than fawners and flunkies such as Maduro Venezuela wouldn't be quite so badly off.