By REUTERS
 
ARACAS, Venezuela, March 28 (Reuters) — President Hugo Chávez said Sunday that his government was drafting a law to require the country's autonomous Central Bank to release international reserves to finance government projects.

For several months, the Central Bank of Venezuela has been resisting Mr. Chávez's demands that part of the reserves be handed over. The bank's directors say the Constitution forbids the reserves from being used to pay for government spending.

"I don't agree at all that the central bank should be autonomous," Mr. Chávez said in a television and radio broadcast, adding that he was sorry that Venezuela's 1999 Constitution gave the bank independence from the government.

He said foreign reserves swelled to a record of more than $23 billion after strict foreign-exchange controls were put in place more than a year ago in Venezuela, the world's fifth leading oil-exporting nation.

Mr. Chávez, who was elected in 1998, has stepped up government spending on social projects to rally political support as he fights an opposition campaign to try to secure a constitutional referendum on his rule.