This letter from today's guardian is interesting as provides a few facts about Venezuela's economic situation that put into question some of the assertions being peddled about it being in a desperate state:

• In September 2012, the IMF estimated Venezuela's fiscal deficit at 7.4% of GDP and its interest payments at 3% of export earnings. Venezuela's "swollen" public sector is actually around 18.4% of the workforce, lower than in most European countries; and Venezuela ended 2012 with GDP growth of 5.5% and an inflation rate of 19.9%, which although high, is a significant reduction from 27.2% in 2010, not to mention its peak of 103.2% in 1996, prior to Chávez's first presidency. Indeed as Mark Weisbrot reported in this newspaper (Report, 4 March): "As for Venezuela's public debt … a better measure is the burden of the foreign part of this debt, which in 2012 was about 1% of GDP, or 4.1% of Venezuela's export earnings."

From the perspective of crisis-ridden Britain, where austerity is clearly not working, Venezuela's economy is robust in comparison. Chávez leaves a Venezuela in control of its sovereign oil wealth, committed and determined to build a society geared to meeting people's needs, rather than lining the pockets of the few.
Sam McGill
Editor, vivavenezuela.co.uk