Venezuela plans to sale central bank gold reserves to UAE – Claims U.S. Senator Marco Rubio
WASHINGTON – CARACAS (Friday, Feb 1st, 2019) – The Republican U.S. Senator Marco Rubio sent a tweet to the United Arab Emirates embassy in Washington on Thursday saying “we have reports that a French national working for @noor_capital is in Caracas today to arrange for the theft of more Gold from #Venezuela. I hope you have advised them that they & any air charter service that does this will be subject to Treasury sanctions”.
.@UAEEmbassyUS, we have reports that a French national working for @noor_capital is in Caracas today to arrange for the theft of more Gold from #Venezuela. I hope you have advised them that they & any air charter service that does this will be subject to Treasury sanctions.
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 31, 2019
Venezuela will sell over 15 tonnes of gold from central bank vaults to the United Arab Emirates in coming days in return for euros in cash, to avoid severe financial liquidity crisis- which is escalating every day after the U.S. backed sanctions followed by the U.K. and EU – pressing ‘Socialist President Nicolas Maduro’ to step down, as per sources.
The sale this year of gold reserves that back the bolivar currency began with a shipment on Jan. 26 of 3 tonnes, as per sources, and follows the export during last year of $900 million of mostly unrefined gold to Turkey.
The 3-tonne shipment that left Maiquetia airport on Jan. 26 was transported on small Venezuelan cargo airline Solar Cargo to the United Arab Emirates, the source claimed – Solar Cargo vehemently denies the claim of transporting any such cargo at the time.
The United States, which is strongly backing all efforts including those of the opposition to oust Maduro and call new elections, warned bankers and traders on Wednesday not to deal in Venezuelan gold.
Venezuela had gold reserves of 132 tonnes between the central bank’s vaults and the Bank of England at the end of November, 2018 according to central bank data.
Maduro’s government resorted to selling off gold about a year ago after falling oil production, the country’s wider economic collapse and rising U.S. sanctions hit public income and made it hard for the country to access credit.
Earlier in 2011 the late President Hugo Chavez, who believed that Venezuela should have physical control of central bank assets repatriated around 160 tonnes of gold from banks in the United States and Europe to the central bank in Caracas.
Some Chavez loyalists are critical of Maduro’s gold sales. Gustavo Marquez, a former trade minister under Chavez, said the government should not keep such operations in the dark.
“We don’t know what is exported any more, or under what conditions. They are operations that should be transparent,” he said in an interview.
Times have changed from the abundance of resources during the Chavez era. Oil prices fell after Maduro took office in 2013 and he has overseen a sharp drop in oil production but tried to keep up spending, leaving the government increasingly unable to pay debt or access new credit.