Venezuela sets highprofile location for Monday debt talks
CARACAS: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government has set a high-profile location near the presidential palace in Caracas for today’s ( November 13) hotly awaited meeting with investors to discuss renegotiating US$ 60 billion in foreign debt.
The newly created debt renegotiation committee will meet with creditors at 2pm (1800GMT) at the government’s ‘ White Palace’ opposite the presidential building, Finance Minister Simon Zerpa said.
Market sources had said Zerpa plus committee head and Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami, who are both on US sanctions lists for corruption and drug-trafficking accusations respectively, would sit out the meeting to allay any fears about legal repercussions for anyone meeting them.
But Zerpa’s exhortation to attend, plus the location of the meeting right opposite the Miraflores presidential palace, appear to indicate the meeting will not be a low-profile affair.
“Once again, we invite investors to register their participation in this meeting,” Zerpa, who is also the finance boss of state oil company PDVSA, said in a Tweet. A PDVSA source said both he and El Aissami would be present, but there was no official confirmation.
Maduro’s move a week ago to summon bondholders for talks about ‘ restructuring’ and ‘ refinancing’ roughly US$ 60 billion in bonds has spooked markets worried Venezuela may be heading for default amid US financial sanctions.
Measures by US President Donald Trump’s administration against the Maduro government, which it accuses of being a ‘dictatorship’ that has impoverished Venezuela’s 30 million people through corruption and incompetence, effectively bar US banks from rolling over the country’s debt into new bonds.
Venezuela did, however, appear to be honoring its most recent debt payment, US$ 1.2 billion due on a bond from PDVSA. Two investors told Reuters they had finally received payment, albeit delayed.
It is unclear how widespread investor participation the meeting will be. US-based creditors are not prohibited from attending the meeting, but are barred from dealings with officials such as Zerpa and El Aissami.
With those two on the government’s committee and no sign of reforms to overhaul a moribund economy, economists are puzzling whether Maduro really wants to refinance the debt.
Rather, some speculate, he might be preparing the ground for an inevitable default by the cashstrapped government after which he would blame Washington, or he could be seeking to leverage foreign investor pressure on Trump to ease sanctions.