Venezuela is looking to raise its borrowings from China to almost USD20 billion as the oil-dependent Latin American country continued to grapple with recession amid low fuel prices, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez last week said he has requested China for more funding support under a “credit-for-oil arrangement” as his government had already spent some USD8 billion in Chinese loans to prop up a sluggish economy.
Chavez saw the Chinese loans as alternative to assistance from the International Monetary Fund, which he said used low-interest loans to foist “savage neoliberalism” on Latin America and other regions.
“When Venezuela used to get financing, the IMF would come here and impose conditions and rules, and sometimes it would even dismantle our laws,” Chávez said, as quoted by WSJ. “But now, with China and Venezuela, we’re on equal footing.”
