How long can the country’s economy grow while it’s oil sector declines without having a serious negative impact on the amount of oil available to export?  Here’s the story from Reuters:

Venezuela economy grew 8.4 pct in 2007-central bank

CARACAS, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Venezuela’s economy expanded 8.4 percent in 2007 despite a contraction in the oil sector, the backbone of the South American nation’s economy, the central bank said on Sunday.

The bank said the oil sector had shrunk 5.3 percent in the year, but 9.7 percent growth in non-oil parts of the economy had compensated.

In its end-of-year statement, the bank said the public sector grew 15.7 percent in 2007, while the private sector, which represents 60 percent of Venezuela’s gross domestic product, grew 8.2 percent.

The left-wing government of the oil-rich nation has used income from high oil prices in recent years to fund social spending and expand the state.

Consumer spending grew 18.7 percent in the year due to lower unemployment and increased household incomes, the banks said. (Reporting by Frank Jack Daniel, editing by Maureen Bavdek)

Tags: energy investments

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 at 12:51 pm and is filed under Venezuela, oil supply. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.