Economy

Sep
24
2010
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Venezuela’s violent crime challenges Chavez in key polls

This article was originally posted by Petroleumworld

Three years ago, Venezuelan Fabiana Dominguez’s 17-year-old son was shot dead in a botched robbery attempt.

Two days ago, a friend of her son was shot in the head in broad daylight, just days after her husband was mugged at gunpoint in a shopping center.

“Nothing has changed in Venezuela,” the 42-year-old said on a shopping trip in Catia, a district of clumsily stacked slums on the hills of Caracas where gun crime is rife.

Dominguez plans to vote against leftist President Hugo Chavez’s party in parliamentary elections Sunday to protest his failure to address rising insecurity in 11 years in power.

As the elections have become yet another plebisicite on the populist president, the opposition — hungry to return to parliament after boycotting the last vote five years ago — has tapped into concern about crime.

Ahead of the campaign, official figures leaked to the press showed more than 19,000 murders in Venezuela in 2009, making it the most violent country in the region, above Mexico, Brazil or El Salvador.

Venezuela has long had a violent reputation, but the murder rate has more than doubled in the past decade, according to NGOs who provide the only regularly-published figures on the issue, citing leaked police reports.

Caracas streets empty out at night and many live behind barred windows.

Analysts blame the rise on various factors, from a broad gap between rich and poor in the westernized, oil rich nation, to unemployment and the easy availability of arms on a key drug trafficking route to Europe.

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Sep
22
2010
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Venezuela: 174 expropriations in 2010

The Venezuelan government has expropriated 174 companies in 2010 alone, according to a new report from COINDUSTRIA. At least 129 are related to the oil and energy sector. 15 food companies and supermarkets have been expropriated as well since January. The rate of private property expropriations has now risen 923.5% since 2007.

COINDUSTRIA is a trade association representing the Venezuelan industrial sector. In total, it represents over half a million Venezuelans.

“The Government compensates the companies that have an embassy to claim their rights, while the Venezuelans have no one to defend them,” said Coindustria President Carlos Larrazabal.

Economist Asdrubal Oliveros of Ecoanalitica estimates that the government is spending 11% of its GDP on nationalization alone.

 
Sep
22
2010
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VenEconomy: Annihilating Private Enterprise

exito1 VenEconomy: Annihilating Private EnterpriseThis article was originally posted by The Latin American Herald Tribune

This Monday, September 20, El Nacional opened its front page with a report by the journalist Katiuska Hernández based on the list of expropriated companies compiled by Conindustria.

According to Conindustria, so far this year, 174 companies have been expropriated, which, added to the 131 expropriated in 2009, brings de facto expropriations of industrial or commercial companies (i.e. those that do not comply with legal requirements and do not have a firm decision handed down by a competent court) in the past 21 months to a total of 305. After the oil sector, the companies that have been most affected are those in the food sector (37 in 2009 and 36 more this year).

The significance of this expropriatory attack stems from a state of affairs that is impossible to hide: that the experience of recent years has demonstrated that any company taken over by the government ends up in ruins, sooner rather than later.

Another evident truth is that the government arrogates the “right” to take companies and properties at whim, because it feels like it, and simply just because. This explains, per se, why domestic and foreign investors are risking increasingly less investment capital in Venezuela. Unfortunately, the price of this lack of investment is being paid for by the entire Venezuelan population with recession and unemployment

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