While I am a huge fan of the Reuters Factbox, sometimes they don't act quickly enough to put one together of what I want. So, with all due respect to the Reuters LatAm crew, consider this my inaugural version of the Factbox : the MaestroFile. This episode's topic is Colombia-Venezuela trade, so that I have something handy to refer back to when discussing how Hugo's threat to cut off trade relations with Colombia will screw the Venezuelan people more than anyone else.
- In 2008, Venezuela imported $6 billion worth of Colombian goods. Colombia imported just over $1 billion worth of goods from Venezuela.
- Venezuela is Colombia's second-largest market for exports, after the U.S.
- Venezuela depends on Colombia for basic goods such as dairy, meat, clothing and, more strategically, imports 300 million cubic feet of natural gas a day, twice as much as originally agreed upon. PDVSA needs the gas for its oil reservoirs to increase pressure and boost production, and as raw material for its petrochemical industry.
- Colombian exports to Venezuela actually rose 17% in 2008 from the previous year.
- According to the Venezuelan-Colombian Integration Chamber (Cavecol), via the Latin American Herald Tribune, bilateral trade in the first half of this year fell by about half compared with the corresponding period of 2008. Colombia's side of the equation largely held, with brunt of the slide born by Venezuela. Venezuelan imports from Colombia slipped by 3% on a year before, but exports going to Colombia tumbled by 56% on the same measure.
- Bilateral trade was once expected to rise a further 11% to 12% this year, having reached $7.3 billion in 2008. Cavecol's latest forecast is $5 billion for the full-year outcome.
- About two-thirds of the food consumed in Venezuela comes from Colombia.
Sources: Dow Jones, Latin American Herald Tribune, Economist Intelligence Unit
Ok now that we've got the data out of the way, the most damning evidence from the LAHT article, in my opinion, is right here:
Venezuelan imports of natural gas from Colombia actually rose against the general trend during the first half.
Venezuela, the country with the largest known natural gas reserves in the Americas - 151 trillion cubic feet and still counting - depends for some of its gas supplies on its much less well-endowed neighbor.
That Colombian gas shipments actually rose when Venezuelan demand in all likelihood declined in line with economic activity merely underlines the inadequacy of the domestic distribution system operated by the state oil corporation, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), critics say.
In addition, Venezuela, the land of the lingering gas guzzler, imports motor vehicles in their thousands from Colombia. At least 10,000 Colombian cars and trucks are expected to be shipped over the border this year under bilateral cooperation deals, after 28,000 last year.
Venezuelan car assembly companies say they can't keep up with demand for several reasons. One of these is said to be lack of capacity, and until recently, rising demand. But the biggest bugbear would appear to be the lack of dollars to pay for imports from the Foreign Exchange Administration Commission (Cadivi) in Caracas.
Auto assemblers say they can't secure access to sufficient hard currency to finance the imports they need to put cars and vehicles together. General Motors has shut down two bus assembly plants in Valencia, Carabobo state, for at least three months, citing foreign exchange problems.
An estimated 4,000 or more jobs at General Motors de Venezuela - which until now has been by far the biggest cog in the auto industry machine in this country - are at risk of disappearing forever if the company's decision translates into a permanent one, as some analysts say they suspect.
Thousands more jobs in dependent sectors are also at stake. Auto concessionaires have warned that the fate of 200 companies and their employees is at stake.
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