My Naive Questions ...

Apart from not too bright about anything technical, I don't have much a head for figures either, certainly don't understand how economy evolves or works to be suddenly blooming or collapsing, euphoria one minute and recession the next. While nearly the whole world seems to be under great pressure and experiencing the consequences of sky high prices of most basic food products, and especially petrol, I learned recently one place in the world where the petrol price is 4 times cheaper even than that of Saudi Arabia, the 1st crude oil producing country. In Venezuela, 45 litres of petrol super costs just a little over €1. Luisa Valera had the tank of her Ford 2007 filled up in the district of Caraqueño of Las Delicias, paid 4 new bolívares for 45 litres of petrol super (slightly over 1€). Before she continued her journey, she took a Coca-Cola in a bar round the corner, for which she paid the equivalent of those 45 litres of petrol. Taking a little bottle of mineral water costs 15 - 20 times the price of petrol! Litre for litre. If you ask to have your tires inflated, or your wind-screen cleaned, the 'tip' surpasses the litre of petrol. For people of Venezuela, the high price of petrol refers to story of another planet. In Europe, the same petrol costs in bolívares 0,097, or 2,5 cents €. Experts there reckon it would be better if the government give away petrol free, so that they save paper and paper work, as well as personnel. The state subsidy for the 580,000 barrels of petrol consumed daily by the Venezuelans costs 13 million € a year. It would be so much better to use that money to improve on the disastrous highways and the dilapidated 3rd world condition of their public transport. With the prices today neither the transportation companies or the petrol stations make any money. What I don't understand is: how can the so called world crisis of higher price in petrol doesn't affect Venezuela, but nearly everybody else? Why the inflation in that country has increased 508,1% in the last 10 years, yet they can enjoy the cheapest petrol in the world, cheaper even than in Saudi Arabia? The ludicrous price generates distortions of the country's true condition of economy to my layman's way of reasoning. And, if all those countries, who don't have their own resources of petrol, rely on imports from the same few common source countries, why then the price in each country is so different? Tags:PetrolPrice,Venezuela,Economy

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