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| =History of Venezuela=
| | <center>| [[Venezuela's Economy]] |</center> |
| '''Colonial Economy: | |
| *Spanish expenditionaries arrived in what is present-day Venezuela in 1498, but generally neglated the area because of its apparent lack of mineral wealth
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| *Encomienda is a system where the Spanish crown granted rights over Indian labor and tribute to individual colonists, who in turn undertook to maintain order and to propogate Christianity among the Indians
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| *The Spanish crown officially ended the encomienda system in 1687, and enslaved Africans replaced the majority of Indian labor
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| *This time was dominated by a plantation culture, more closely resembling the systems of the Carribbean Islands than that of a South American territory
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| *Colonial authorities organized the local Indians into an encomienda system to grow tobacco, cotten, indigo, and cocoa
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| '''Post Independence:
| | <center>| [[Pre-Chavez Economy]] | [[Chavez Economy]] | [[Petroleum Industry]] |</center> |
| *Cocoa eclipsed tobacco as the most important crop in the 1700's
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| *Coffee surpassed cocoa in the 1800's. A coffee boom in the 1830's made Venezuela the world's third largest exporter of coffee
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| *Fluctuations in the international coffee market created large swings in the economy throughout the 19th century
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| '''Early 20th Century:
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| *The first commercial drilling of oil occured in 1917 and the oil boom of the 1920's brought to an end the coffee era in Venezuela economic history
| | <center>[[Image:Storia.gif|thumb|Description]]</center> |
| *The oil boom transformed Venezuela from a relatively poor agrarian society into Latin America's wealthiest state
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| *By 1928 Venezuela was the world's leading exporter of oil and second in total petroleum production
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| *Venezuela remained the world's leading oil exporter until 1970
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| *Oil represented over 90 percent of Venezuela's total exports begining in the 1930's
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| *The newfound oil let to widespread corruption and deceit by foreign companies and indifferent military dictators flourished which hindered economic developement
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| '''Arrival of Democracy:
| | <center>[[History of Venezuela]] </center> |
| *With the arrival of democracy in 1958, Venezuela's new leaders concentrated on the oil industry as the main source of financing for their reformist economic and social policies
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| *The year 1960 marked the countries entrance as a founding member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which set the stage for the economies rapid expansion in the 1970's
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| *Throughout the 1960's the government addressed general social reform by spending large sums of money on education, health, electricity, portable water and other basic projects
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| *Rapid economic growth accompanied these reformist policies and from 1960-1973 the countries real per capita output increased by twenty five percent
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| '''Booms and Busts of Oil
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| *The quadrupling of crude oil prices in 1973 spawned an oil euphoria and a spree of public and private consumption unprecedented in Venezuelan history
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| *During the 1970's, the government established hundreds of new state-owned enterprises and decentralized agencies as the public sector assumed the role of primary engine of economic growth
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| *However, Venezuela was experiencing an unsustainable pace of public and private expansion but the government refused to lower spending
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| *In 1983 the price of oil fell and soaring interest rates caused the national dept to multiply
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| *Oil revenues could no longer support the array of government subsidies, price controls, and exchange rate losses
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| *The government of Jaime Lusinchi (president, 1984-1989) attempted to reverse the 1983 economic crisis through devaluations of currency, a multi-tier exchange rate system and greater import protection
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| *These reforms only stimulated a recovery for a short time before the economy could no longer support the high rates of subsidies and the increasing foreign debt burden
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| *Throughout the 1990's Venezuela's economy has staggered through numerous attempts to fix the economy which has been met with lettle success
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| =Economic Statistics=
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