Venezuela invests to save steel, aluminum industries

Venezuela invests to save steel, aluminum industries. The Venezuelan government announced investment of 1,168 million dollars to rescue the iron, steel and aluminium companies affected by the fall of prices as result of the world economic crisis. The resources for the Socialist Guayana Plan will be used in the remaining year and in 2011 and 2012 divided in 384.615 dollars and 783.9 billion dollars, announced President Hugo Chavez this week. "Since the start of the national planning (in 1958), this is the first time that a plan for public companies is mapped out and implemented", stressed Chavez. An important characteristic of the investment plan is that the funds will be allocated to projects discussed by workers from the companies involved in the project and will be supervised by the workers themselves. The plan is aimed at developing production and processing lines of finished products as they are the ones that contribute more benefits while Venezuela is devoted until now to export raw material. Taking into account the workers recommendations, they also agreed to create a special sub commission attached to the Central Planning Commission for the Implementation of this Plan. Those investments, explained Chavez, will be under the workers' control to help the basic industries to pick up steam, bring them up to date and solve many problems inherited from the old Capitalist State and privatization.