Progressing pn Its Own

One country was conspicuous by its absence from the list of nations receiving increased Alianza aid: Venezuela. With its close cooperation between government and industry (see WORLD BUSINESS), the oil-rich nation is in the happy position of not needing massive infusions of U.S. dollars; in the judgment of economists, it is already past the takeoff point and able to generate its own momentum for progress. The proof? While President Johnson was speaking in Washington last week, Venezuela's President Raul Leoni went be fore his Congress in Caracas to announce a four-year, $850 million public spending project.

The program, supplementing Venezuela's annual $1.3 billion budget, is Leoni's way of "consolidating and widening" the economic boom that began in 1962 under Romulo Betancourt. Leoni will use the money to develop the country's interior, stimulate more private enterprise and relieve unemployment (still running 13.7%) by creating 20,000 new jobs. Some 90% of the funds will go toward increasing Venezuela's productive capacity and developing its "basic social capital," meaning everything from electric power to new schools. The other 10% will go for public health and for shoring up debt-plagued regional and district governments, as well as other federal dependencies. Among the projects:

> $191 million for irrigation and flood-control development to bring 3,000,000 more acres of cropland into production by 1980, making the country self-sufficicnt in farm production. Last year Venezuela spent almost $60 million on food imports.

> $248 million for airport, dock and road construction to connect backwater towns with larger population centers.

> $48 million for an explosives plant and the expansion of the government's $155 million petrochemical industry.

> $11 million for a high-tension distribution grid that will be able to carry 220,000 kw. of power from hydroelectric projects in northern Venezuela to central and western parts of the country.

To pay for it all, Leoni is counting on $180 million from foreign credits, $88 million more from a government bond issue going mostly to private Venezuelan banks, and the rest from annual budget surpluses.

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