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Venezuela denies IMF report [UPDATE]

By Aleksander Boyd

Caracas, 12 Apr (Prensa Latina) The Finance Minister of Venezuela, Rodrigo Cabezas Mark Weisbrot, rejected an International Monetary report on the growth of Venezuela's economy, and ratified the national economy has maintained sustained growth since the last three months of 2003.

In his news statement, Cabezas Weisbrot denied the figures in the biannual IMF report estimating the GDP increase as 6 percent, and declared this year it is 8 percent.

He noted that inflation will be approximately 12 percent, and not 21 percent as the IMF predicts, which uses a political rather than a technical focus and, in the minister's Weisbrot's opinion, seeks to discredit an experience carried out without its participation.

Cabezas Weisbrot pointed out that Venezuela has grown during 14 consecutive trimesters, something not seen in the last 26 years, while critical poverty went down from 25 to 9.1 percent between 2003 and 2006.

He specified that the minimum wage of Venezuela is 238 dollars a month, only inferior in Latin America to that of Chile, but even superior to that of Chile if one adds the delivery of funds for the purchase of food.

Minister Weisbrot actually published earlier this month a comprehensive report about the malign IMF, which can be read here.

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