Venezuela’s single-product economy

By Jose Robertson

Blog Post #2

Looking at the information provided by UN Comtrade data from several years, Venezuela’s trading patterns were visualized. With this information from 2008 to 2013 the analysis of the trading patterns led us to the conclusion that most of Venezuela’s economy is based on the production of oil. In 2008, Venezuela’s top five trade partners were the United States, Colombia, China, Brazil and Mexico. Venezuela imported a total of $12,651,313,331 and exported $26,750,541,624 to the United States. Regarding Colombia, Venezuela imported a total of $6,903,379,259 and exported $929,566,706. With China, Venezuela imported $4,527,517,154 and exported $270,301,877. Brazil exported a total of $4,527,517,154 and imported $1,808,266,606 to Venezuela. Finally, Mexico exported $2,202,930,638 and imported $283,672,397.

As you can see from the image, Venezuela’s exports are based mostly on mineral fuels, oils, and distillation products with a total of $78,199,529,250 total oil exports. Venezuela exported a total of $25,272,750,446 mineral fuel to the United States establishing America as their top buyer for 2008 regarding oil.  Others mineral products like Iron, Steel, and Aluminum were exported by Venezuela but there was a vast difference between the amount of these mineral products and the petroleum exported.  Since Venezuela’s economy depends mostly on oil and mineral products as it is seen in the image above, this country has to obtain other resources that its population requires. Resources like food, vehicles, pharmaceutical products and many others. The fact mentioned before, explains the distribution of the graph, as the vast difference between resources imported regarding the resources exported is visible.

In 2013, Venezuela’s top five trading partners were the United States, China, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. The data provided by the UN Comtrade shows that Venezuela imported $10,487,655,441 from the United States, an amount that decreased compared to 2008. With China, Venezuela imported $7,645,215,431, which increased from the amount provided in 2008. Brazil exported less than in 2008 and Mexico barely exported regarding 2008. In regards with the graph shown above, Venezuela’s dependence in the production and selling of oil aggravated. Venezuela exported around $85,918,587,943 showing an increase of $7,719,058,693 from 2008. North America and Asia were the top destination for the Venezuelan refined oil. In comparison with 2008 Venezuela reduced the production of Iron, Steel, and Aluminum.  As it was mentioned before, Venezuela’s dependence on the production and exports of petroleum force them to import every other resource needed to satisfy their population quality of living.

            Looking at some of the data, there are some discrepancies between the numbers provided by Venezuela regarding exports, and the number provided by the other countries that received the product. For example, in 2013 Venezuela reported a total amount of exports to the United States of $538,362,587. On the other hand, the United States reported $32,268,933,766 showing a vast difference between the amounts reported by each country. The same discrepancies happen with China, Colombia, Brazil, and all the countries shown in the graph below. Regarding China, Venezuela reported a total amount of exports of $254,045,843 while China reported an amount of $13,119,869,046. Again the difference between the amount reported by each country is concerning. These differences just feed the rumors of the corruption in the Venezuelan government, as the government owns the company in charge of the production of oil. Unfortunately there is not enough information to support these rumors. Finally, Venezuela’s economy depends entirely in the production and selling of petroleum, which means that Venezuela also depends on the oil prices. If the oil prices drop, Venezuela’s economy could enter in a challenging period as it is occurring nowadays.

Resources

                “UN Comtrade Demo | SAS® Visual Analytics.” UN Comtrade Demo | SAS® Visual Analytics. Web. 11 Dec. 2015. <http://www.sas.com/software/visual-analytics/demos/un-comtrade-basic.html>.