Venezuela gets its first shipment of gold bars back from Europe
President Hugo Chávez has ordered almost all of the country's foreign bullion reserves to be repatriated from western banks
Reuters
The Guardian, Friday 25 November 2011
Vehicles carrying gold bars drive past Miraflores Palace in Caracas.
A first shipment of gold bars arrived in Venezuela on Friday after President Hugo Chávez ordered almost all of the country's foreign bullion reserves to be repatriated from western bank vaults.
Experts have cautioned that the operation, which will eventually transport more than 160 tonnes of ingots worth more than $11bn (£7.1bn) to Venezuela – will be risky, slow and expensive.
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"They say Chávez is going to take the gold … and give it to Cuba as a gift," the president chuckled yesterday, mocking rivals who accuse him of planning to sell the ingots to fill his warchest ahead of next year's presidential election.
"It's coming to the place it never should have left … the vaults of the Central Bank of Venezuela, not the bank of London or the bank of the United States," he said. "It's our gold."
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Chávez announced the repatriation in August as a sovereign step that would help protect Venezuela's foreign reserves from economic turbulence in the US and Europe. It also was seen as a populist measure ahead of next October's election, when the socialist leader will seek another six-year term.
Next year's vote is likely to be contentious, and some critics suggest Chávez is worried about Venezuela's foreign reserves being frozen - as happened to Muammar Gaddafi.
The repatriattion also reduces the risk of assets seizures related to arbitration cases, including those linked to the nationalisation of oil projects run by big US companies.
Full story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/26/venezuela-gold-bars-europe-banks
Gold is $1,581/oz today. When it hits $2,000, it will be up 26.5%. Let's see how long that takes. - De 3/11/2013 - ANSWER: 7 Years, 5 Months
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