Venezuela rethinks cheap gasoline

Venezuela, Latin America’s biggest oil producer, is considering hiking its extraordinarily cheap domestic gasoline price as it copes with the global crisis.

President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that his government is considering the move, after having kept prices at the pump frozen for the past 13 years.
“It’s one of the issues we’re looking at, because people are consuming a lot in these luxury cars, and it’s not fair that the rich pay almost nothing for gasoline here,” the leftwing leader said.

Currently, a liter of gasoline in Venezuela costs about four cents (16 cents a gallon) — cheaper even than a liter of milk, which sells for around two dollars.

Analysts see the development as linked more to falling oil export revenues in the depressed world market than socialist goals.

AFP