Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuela, the biggest oil exporter in the Americas, may have to cut government spending next year after oil prices plunged more than 70 percent since July, Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez said.

Venezuela’s 2009 budget is based on a forecast that the country’s oil exports will average $60 a barrel next year. Venezuela is “strongly in-line” with Saudi Arabia’s view that $75 a barrel is an “adequate price,” Rodriguez told reporters today during a summit in Brazil.

“If you have a drop in income, you have to cut,” he said. “We don’t yet know how much. We’re evaluating different scenarios with different oil prices and levels of production and export.”

Venezuelan lawmakers approved a budget for 2009 that calls for a 22 percent increase in spending compared with the original budget passed for this year, and Rodriguez has said the government won’t trim spending during the first quarter. That would delay any cut until after a referendum expected in February or March on President Hugo Chavez’s proposal to run for another term.

The Venezuelan basket, an index of prices for the country’s petroleum exports, fell to $31.36 a barrel Dec. 12, the lowest level in four years. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to cut output by 4.2 million barrels a day from September production levels at a meeting today.

Venezuelan Planning Minister Haiman El-Troudi said the government doesn’t foresee any problems financing development projects in 2009. It could face difficulty in 2010 should the crisis continue, he said today in a speech in Caracas.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joshua Goodman in Rio de Janeiro jgoodman19@bloomberg.net; Matthew Walter in Caracas at mwalter4@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: December 17, 2008 11:23 EST