Miningmx reported that Venezuela will nationalize its gold industry and is moving its international reserves out of Western countries.

Mr Hugo Chavez president of Venezuela said that the moves will make the finances of South America's biggest oil exporter even murkier as the 57 year old socialist leader gears up for an election battle that was already looking close even before he was recently diagnosed with cancer.

Mr Chavez has put large parts of Venezuela's economy under state control and is now targeting the gold industry after his government quarreled with foreign companies who complained that limits on how much gold they could export hurt their efforts to secure financing and develop projects. He seems to have lost patience and decided to put the whole industry into state hands.

The charismatic president said that "We're going to nationalize the gold and we're going to convert it among other things, into international reserves because gold continues to increase in value. I'm going to approve a law to begin taking the gold areas and there I count on because there continues to be anarchy, mafias, smuggling."

Mr Chavez who has undergone two sessions of chemotherapy in Cuba since he announced in June that he had cancer, often rails against the reliance on the US dollar as the global reserve currency of choice. The move is in line with Mr Chavez's ideological world view during his 12 years in power he has often bashed the United States and sought to align Venezuela with emerging powers and opponents of Washington such as Iran.

Mr Chavez agreed last year to let gold miners export up to 50% of production, up from 30% previously. The other 50% must be sold to the central bank. But that did not satisfy foreign companies like Rusoro, which said the limits made it much harder for them to get financing abroad, develop projects and create jobs.

(Sourced from www.miningmx.com)