Brasilia, May 25 (IANS) Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said the world economy must grow accustomed to the high price of oil - currently above $130 a barrel - because there’s “no limit” to how high it can go, EFE news agency reported Sunday. “We can’t talk about limits. We could’ve talked about limits when Venezuela proposed that price band (with a floor of $22 a barrel and a ceiling of $28), which was working well until the war in Iraq pulverized it,” Chavez told Efe here.

“There’s no limit now,” said the Venezuelan leader, whose country boasts the largest crude reserves in the Western Hemisphere.

When asked about experts’ concerns that the high price of oil could have a serious impact on the world economy, as occurred in the 1970s, Chavez, a socialist and harsh critic of US foreign policy, said that developed countries already have assimilated the impact.

“The world economy has to assimilate that price, just as we do, our economies, we have to assimilate the high prices of agricultural machinery, of medical equipment and of medicine,” he said.

“They have to look at their consumerist model,” Chavez said, referring to the high rates of energy consumption in the wealthy countries.

Chavez said he could not provide details at the moment, but noted that his country is making investments - both in Venezuela and abroad - to increase its refining capacity and give greater value-added to its petroleum.

Chavez travelled to Brazil for a summit in which a new South American organization, the Union of South American Nations, or Unasur, was created.

The Venezuelan described the new grouping, which plans to hold annual summits of heads of state and government and biannual ministerial meetings and will have a permanent secretariat based in Quito, as a counterweight to US influence in South America.