Venezuela: Manufacturers call for policies to boost production

[ChangoLoa]

The long-awaited recovery of the Venezuelan industrial sector will have to wait another year. Although the government rhetoric has supported the results of the measures adopted after the devaluation, both economic data and the private sector say otherwise.

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Menéndez said that the government has provided VEB 2.8 billion (USD 651.16 million) to some 300 companies that, in some cases, managed to grow by 40 percent and have created 9,700 jobs.

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Indeed, the BCV reported a 1.8-percent growth in the manufacturing sector in the third quarter of the year. However, this figure is low if we take into account that the local industry had declined for seven consecutive quarters.

Although the food and beverage sectors increased by 15.6 percent, rubber and plastic industries decreased by 7.3 percent, base metals declined 43.2 percent, furniture and machinery plummeted 30.5 percent and machinery and equipment fell 29.5 percent.

Larrazábal also said that the Bicentennial Fund is a way to support the new forms of ownership promoted by the Executive Office, which are not provided for under the Constitution. "They are companies where the State remains a partner. Free initiative of citizens to set up a company, with their own effort and the support of the State does not exist because the State wants to have a stake."

President Hugo Chávez recognized this fact last week: "this fund supports the micro-enterprise to build an economic model that includes social, communal and private ownership."


http://english.eluniversal.com/2010/11/29/en_eco_art_manufacturers-call-f_29A4788731.shtml

[social_critic]

1. Who is waiting for economic recovery in the manufacturing sector?

That would be like the Japanese forces on Iwo Jima waiting for Xmas trees deliveries. I can't believe anybody with a lick of sense would expect Venezuela's private manufacturing sector to recover. Government plans are to turn the country into a socialist workers' paradise, with private ownership a very minor part of the economy -as long as the owners behave. They are even touting comunes and barter, as if this were 9000 BC.