Category: Banks. Country: Venezuela.
The creation of the Banco Central de Venezuela took place against a backdrop of great political, social and economic changes in the world. Aside from the start of the Second World War, the country itself was starting a great debate about the political and economic direction which Venezuela should take following the 27-year rule of General Juan Vicente Gomez. The new government worked out a national plan called the February Program, which foresaw a series of economic policy measures, one of the most important of which was the foundation of the Central Bank. The Banco Central de Venezuela was created by virtue of a law promulgated on September 8, 1939, and published in the Official Gazette No. 19,974 on December 8, 1939 during the presidency of Eleazar Lopez Contreras. Conservative sectors in the country made this into an extremely heated issue, as they did not fully understand the changes going on at either an international or national level. They saw it as a threat to the monetary stability of the nation, seeing in a Central Bank the danger of runaway and uncontrollable public expenditure. This situation led to claims of the project's unconstitutionality (which failed) after the law was promulgated by the National Congress. The row was taken up by the media, and one commercial bank also fought against the new legislation, which established the BCV's central and exclusive right to produce bank notes and required private banks to hand over the gold needed to back the bills in circulation.
Address: Av. Urdaneta esq. Las Carmelitas, Caracas 1010, Phone: 58 212 8015111 Fax: 58 212 8611649
