Venezuela withdraws $460 million from IMF

With its cash reserves in sharp decline, Venezuela withdrew $460 million from the International Monetary Fund last month in its third such operation this year. The IMF website showed yesterday that Venezuela exchanged part of its Special Drawing Rights -- an international reserve asset created by the IMF -- account at the Fund for greenbacks. Some countries often buy SDRs to comply with their obligations at the IMF, and in other cases sell them for hard currency to raise their reserve level at home, the Fund said. Venezuela depends almost exclusively on oil exports and has taken a big hit from a drop in crude prices. Its hard currency reserves have fallen 25% over the past year to $15.4 billion. More…